Payments are a necessary part of commerce. But managing them requires capturing, storing, and securing sensitive information; complying with complex regulatory requirements; and validating the identities of those seeking to be paid.

These activities carry a lot of risk. As attacks on corporate payment systems continue, many companies are stepping up their efforts to mitigate those risks.

Digital payments, which can help mitigate risk in business-to-business (B2B) transactions, are now taking a page from the consumer playbook. Much like the tokenization mechanism used by consumer payment technologies such as Apple Pay, these solutions create a proxy number, a code that stands in place of any specific corporate financial information until the payment safely reaches its destination. Proxy numbers are used in place of bank account information until a transaction reaches a payment network where it is safe from hackers and fraudsters.