Fintech South 2025: Thomas Priore on Connected Commerce and the $10 Trillion Check Opportunity

As Thomas Priore took the stage at Fintech South 2025 in Atlanta, he marked more than another conference appearance. The timing was symbolic: Priority's 20th anniversary, celebrating two decades of building what was once considered a "novel idea"—integrating software and payments on a single platform. Today, that vision has evolved into a nearly billion-dollar unified commerce platform processing over $130 billion annually. Yet despite this digital transformation success story, Thomas Priore revealed his biggest competitor remains surprisingly analog: the estimated $10 trillion in U.S. business-to-business transactions still conducted via paper checks.

"We first started the business with the idea that software and payments are something that businesses need to operate on a single platform," Thomas Priore explained duringhis Business RadioX interview at the event. That 20-year-old insight now underpins Priority's approach to what he calls "connected commerce"—a distinction from the more common "embedded finance" terminology that reveals fundamental differences in how financial services integrate into business operations.

Why Thomas Priore Calls It Connected Commerce, Not Embedded Finance

The terminology matters more than semantics suggest. Thomas Priore's "connected commerce" framework addresses a critical pain point that traditional embedded finance solutions often overlook: the temporal disconnect between when money arrives and when businesses can actually deploy it.

"It's not just about embedded financial tools, but connecting the payments and banking experience," Thomas Priore explained at Fintech South 2025. This philosophy recognizes that businesses operating on legacy banking infrastructure face frustrating delays where funds remain inaccessible over weekends or holidays despite having technically "arrived" in their accounts.

For small businesses, being part of a system that not only processes incoming payments but also makes those funds immediately usable—even on weekends or holidays—delivers tangible competitive advantages. This connected approach enables what Thomas Priore describes as an "accelerated cashflow experience" throughPriority's Commerce Engine, which helps businesses "collect, store, lend, and send money" through integrated workflows rather than fragmented point solutions.

The construction industry exemplifies this transformation potential. "If I'm a large contractor getting money in from my lender or equity holder, and I'm able to qualify all the liens I need to get money out to my contractors, that's going to keep them on the job," Thomas Priore illustrated during his presentation. This cascading effect—where faster contractor payments enable quicker sub-contractor and employee disbursements—demonstrates how connected commerce can "speed up the rate of commerce" across entire industry ecosystems.

The $10 Trillion Check Opportunity Thomas Priore Is Targeting

While consumer-to-business payments achieved roughly 80% digital adoption, the B2B sector tells a starkly different story. Thomas Priore noted at Fintech South that "in the U.S., the B2B market is nearly $20 trillion, and about half of that still happens on a check." This persistent reliance on paper-based payments—representing an estimated $10 trillion in annual transaction volume—creates massive opportunities for platforms offering seamless digital alternatives.

"What's your biggest competitor?" Thomas Priore asked rhetorically. "Checks. Anywhere there's checks." The embedded costs extend beyond obvious inefficiencies to include fraud exposure and operational drag that makes check processing increasingly expensive relative to digital alternatives. "As we continue to refine these tools and bring together that payment and banking experience to create lower costs and better opportunities to keep money invested, suddenly the differential between digital acceptance and checks looks very different," he explained.

Thomas Priore identified two powerful catalysts accelerating this long-overdue transformation. Generational workforce changes represent the first driver: "Folks with long tenure in their jobs came into a world that wasn't digital. The folks replacing them grew up in a digital world." This demographic shift naturally drives adoption as digital-native professionals assume decision-making roles.

The COVID pandemic provided an unexpected second accelerant. "People weren't in the office. It's really hard to sign checks from your home," Thomas Priore observed. The forced remote work experiment revealed operational vulnerabilities in check-dependent processes, prompting many organizations to finally embrace digital alternatives they'd previously resisted.

Despite these converging pressures, Thomas Priore maintains realistic expectations about transformation timelines. "In payments we don't have a revolution; it's an evolution," he stated at Fintech South 2025. This measured perspective shapesPriority's implementation approach and market strategy.

Thomas Priore's Evolutionary Approach to Market Disruption

Rather than pursuing the disruptive revolution narrative common in fintech, Thomas Priore advocates evolutionary transformation that respects businesses' existing technology investments. "There are systems that businesses have invested in intelligently—their core accounting systems, their enterprise reporting systems—that were not necessarily built for the experience we're discussing," he acknowledged. "To have them pivot takes some nuance, sophistication, and elegance."

This philosophy drives the Priority Commerce Engine's architecture, designed to work "in coordination and collaboration with systems already in place to create a digital experience, but not through wholesale change where you have to make substantial investments or tear something down." Thomas Priore's approach recognizes that sustainable transformation requires integration with—not replacement of—existing business infrastructure.

The practical results of this evolutionary methodology prove impressive. Thomas Priore revealed that Priority has successfully onboarded clients "in weeks and months, not years," with some making decisions and becoming operational within a single month. More complex integrations requiring technical development extend to approximately six months—still remarkably fast for enterprise financial system implementations.

"You see results really quickly. After a 12-month evolution, a lot of change can take place," Thomas Priore noted, highlighting howPriority's approach delivers rapid value while supporting long-term partnerships. The company now serves over 1.6 million customer accounts, processes $140 billion in annual transaction volume, and maintains 62% of adjusted gross profit from recurring revenue sources—evidence that Thomas Priore's patient, evolutionary strategy delivers sustainable business results.

Atlanta Roots and Forward Vision

Priority's Atlanta-area headquarters positions Thomas Priore at the center of the region's dramatic fintech growth. "We formed here 20 years ago. We've been an important part of the evolving and growing business population in Atlanta," he said, explaining Priority's continued Fintech South sponsorship. The company's community engagement extends beyond business operations, with employees participating in mentoring programs, student internships, and volunteer work at local food banks.

As Priority celebrates its 20th anniversary, Thomas Priore's vision for connected commerce appears increasingly prescient. The convergence of generational workforce shifts, pandemic-accelerated digital adoption, and growing recognition of check processing costs suggests the B2B payments market stands at an inflection point. While Thomas Priore maintains his "evolution not revolution" philosophy, the evolution's pace may soon accelerate dramatically.

For businesses still processing significant check volumes, Thomas Priore offered straightforward advice at Fintech South 2025: "Give us a call." As nearly half of the $20 trillion B2B market continues operating on paper-based systems, the opportunity for connected commerce platforms to deliver transformative efficiency gains remains vast. Thomas Priore has spent 20 years building the infrastructure to capture this opportunity—and the market may finally be ready to embrace it.