By Jim Conning, Banking & Alliances Director, AccessPay
When looking ahead to a new year, there is often talk of payments disruption. But in B2B payments and treasury, meaningful change rarely happens overnight. Instead, progress is more evolutionary than revolutionary, as behaviours and business processes catch up with technological innovation and regulatory requirements. Here, I examine the key evolutionary themes we will see more of in 2026 and their implications for finance and treasury leaders.
Real-time payments continue their rise
The rise of real-time payments has been an enduring theme over the last two decades, and that will continue in 2026. New payment rails continue to come online; Canada’s Real-Time Rail (RTR) is expected to go live in 2026. And in some cases, regulations will encourage adoption. The EU’s Instant Payments Regulation for SEPA Instant Credit Transfers is a case in point. However, it takes time for transactions to switch to new real-time rails. Often, adoption is quicker amongst consumers than businesses, which have to consider the costs and risks of switching to new payment rails. In the UK, we are now seeing more businesses interested in using Faster Payments (launched in 2008) to improve customer experience, particularly in high-impact scenarios such as processing insurance claims or refunds. However, finance leaders need to understand the details of the Faster Payments service-level agreement (SLA). Although most payments appear instantly, the SLA states it can take up to two hours, and on occasion it can take until the next banking day. These crucial details should be factored into the development of the proposition.
AI usage will be limited and targeted, for now
For those businesses that want to take advantage of real-time rails, implementing automated payment processes is an important piece of the puzzle. Not only that, but payments automation also enables businesses to scale without tying growth to headcount. As in other sectors, AI is attracting significant attention for its potential to automate finance and treasury processes. Over time, it will undoubtedly play an important role, but we are unlikely to see widespread adoption of fully autonomous, AI-enabled payment processes in 2026, not while questions over trust, governance and accountability remain unresolved. One area where AI is already having an impact is in the anti-fraud space, with several AI-enabled solutions emerging to detect and prevent fraud. In contrast, bank connectivity solutions are helping corporates extract more value from their existing finance and treasury systems and bank relationships. By automating payment and bank statement flows, they significantly reduce the time spent on data entry. Crucially, they also improve cash visibility, a particular challenge for multi-banked corporates, by centralising the data flows.
ISO 20022, still misunderstood and undervalued
ISO 20022 is an ongoing theme in payments, but so far it has proven to be a missed opportunity for most corporates. The transition to the ISO 20022 standard and the enhanced data requirements it introduces have been a long time coming, but many corporates are only just sitting up and taking notice, now that deadlines are starting to bite. In many cases, ISO 20022 is treated as a regulatory compliance exercise, but the richer, structured data it delivers offers significant scope for smarter automation and improved workflows for companies that choose to engage with it.
Failure to Prevent Fraud: a key compliance challenge
Finally, the Failure to Prevent Fraud Offence, which came into force in September 2025, should be a major compliance concern in 2026. Businesses will need to review existing processes and ensure they have appropriate fraud-prevention controls in place. Invariably, some businesses will fail to do this, and in reality, it’s only when there are prosecutions or regulatory actions for breaches that managers will sit up and take note. Yet, with the Serious Fraud Office issuing guidance in late 2025 that expects firms’ compliance policies to work in practice, not just on paper, corporates should be taking their obligations seriously.
