Radiofluorination of arylboronic acids pinacol esters (arylBPin) mediated by copper triflate pyridine complex is one of the more promising synthetic approaches for the direct introduction of nucleophilic [¹⁸F]fluoride into non-activated arenes and heteroarenes. However, the application of this method to the production of positron emission tomography (PET) radiotracers in automated synthesizers remains a challenging task. The choice of phase-transfer catalyst (PTC) and corresponding base used for the generation of reactive [¹⁸F]fluoride species has a profound impact on the efficiency of the ¹⁸F-fluorination process. Herein we report the development of a simple procedure involving trapping of the aqueous [¹⁸F]fluoride on a weak anion-exchange resin (WAX) and its release by elution with pyridinium sulfonate in dimethyl acetamide. Obtained reactive [¹⁸F]fluoride was used as-is in a copper-catalyzed fluorination reaction employing pyridinium salt as both PTC and base. High radiochemical conversion rates (RCCs) achieved for a series of simple arylBPin substrates and 4-[¹⁸F]fluoro-D,L-phenylalanine demonstrate the efficiency of this novel ¹⁸F-processing approach. Notably, the proposed method obviates conventional azeotropic drying steps, solvents evaporation and/or changeover and can be implemented on commercial automated synthesizers.