As finance leaders across North America and Europe kick off 2026, discussions about B2B payments are more grounded in real-world outcomes than in abstract possibilities. Amid pressure to boost performance while managing risk, B2B executives are choosing strategies that deliver measurable impact.
This year, it’s operations over aspirations.
A few major trends are featured prominently in 2026: blending human expertise with AI intelligence for better decisions, reconciling the promise of real-time payments with commercial realities, and strengthening defenses against fraud in an environment where both insider threats and AI-augmented attacks are accelerating.
Human Insight and AI Intelligence Converge Around Measurable ROI
Decision-makers are growing cautious about technology investments that improve process speed but fail to move the needle on key financial outcomes. In this context, Gunita Bindra, Vice President of Bottomline’s Paymode network, is framing 2026 as “a year of differentiation and reflection, where the value of AI isn’t measured by automation counts but by financial impact and strategic insight.”
Bindra said the strongest results come from pairing human judgment with machine power, profitably. Colin Swain, Global Head of Product, Corporate Solutions at Bottomline, agreed, noting in a year-end blog post that “the 2026 litmus test is no longer about AI novelty. It’s about solid outcomes in forecast accuracy, payments security, DSO improvement, and cycle time reduction in exceptions, to name a few goals.”
“The real magic happens when teams design workflows that elevate decision quality, from prioritizing supplier payments to optimizing cash positions and identifying actions that genuinely influence profitability,” Bindra added. Organizations are measuring success more by outcomes including reduced cycle times, stronger working capital performance, and improved supplier relationships, rather than simply throughput or exception rates.
Real-Time Payments, Embedded Payments, and AI Get a Reality Check
Commenting on one of the hottest topics in payments—last year, this year, and for years to come, Bottomline Global Solutions Architect Eric Campbell said “…embedding options thoughtfully into workflows and leveraging ISO networks…” creates more operational value.
Meanwhile, the real-time payments conversation has moved from hyper-enthusiasm to rational evaluation. While instant rails have expanded capability and transaction limits, adoption remains uneven, especially in the US. Many organizations continue to rely on ACH and wires, not due to resistance to innovation, but because real-time value depends on counterpart readiness and operational maturity across the ecosystem.
Also, once a payment clears in real time, recovery options are very limited. Eric Choltus, Chief Product Officer, said. “It’s difficult, if not impossible, to claw money back once it’s sent out.” He emphasized that irreversibility fundamentally changes the risk equation, making fraud prevention and pre-transaction controls more important than ever.
Choltus said organizations are adopting selective real-time strategies rather than pursuing wholesale migration. For example, hybrid approaches like blending traditional rails with instant options allow firms to align payment methods with urgency, risk tolerance, and business value.
“We recommend hybrid strategies,” Choltus said, “so that speed is used where it provides clear benefit while traditional rails maintain stability and control elsewhere.”
For instant to truly scale, identity verification is foundational. “Knowing exactly who you’re paying, and validating accounts before funds move, is one of the most effective safeguards available,” he said. Combined with optionality across multiple payment rails, verification enables finance teams to move faster without compromising governance or security.
To this topic, Bindra applies her 2026 guiding question: “Is my money making money?” reframing cash management as an investment decision, not a back-office function. This is an area where AI can make a measurable difference. “When AI surfaces anomalies and patterns,” Bindra said, “finance professionals can focus on strategic planning, risk evaluation, and scenario analysis instead of transactional oversight.”
In 2026, human-AI collaboration is increasingly seen as a tool to improve decision quality and financial performance, not merely to reduce manual steps.
Fraud, Insider Risk, and an AI-Driven Threat Landscape
As payment systems become faster and more interconnected, risk exposure continues to grow. Experts describe a fraud landscape where insider risk, social engineering, and AI-enabled deception overlap, creating fusion threat scenarios that are difficult to detect.
“Many incidents now involve overlapping behaviors, where internal access is exploited in combination with external manipulation,” said Tomer Shenhar, Head of Risk Strategy at Bottomline. He noted that insider risk is often about access and opportunity rather than malicious intent, especially in environments where controls are not operating in sync.
“Fragmented systems and siloed data can delay detection, allowing small anomalies to become significant problems,” he said, emphasizing the importance of unified monitoring and advanced analytics to detect subtle deviations across users, systems, and payment activity, whether caused by humans or automated agents.
Industry experts looking at 2026 are virtually unanimous about AI’s dual role in fraud. Eric Choltus said, “AI strengthens monitoring and detection, but it also allows attackers to scale impersonation and manipulation with unprecedented sophistication.”
He emphasized the importance of ‘explainable AI,’ adding that, “Alerts must be transparent, and decision-making should remain under human control.”
More organizations are responding to AI threats with layered defenses that combine behavioral analytics, contextual risk scoring, and continuous monitoring. Collaboration across institutions is also critical, Shenhar said: “Shared intelligence helps surface fraud patterns that individual organizations might otherwise miss.”
The Path of Pragmatism
The B2B payments outlook for 2026 is defined by execution rather than experimentation. Leaders and teams are prioritizing resilience, measurable value and smarter risk management over headline-driven “transformation.” Human-AI collaboration, selective real-time adoption, and proactive fraud controls are the new baseline.
One other area where banks and corporates must focus and better align is the ongoing shift to the new ISO 20022 financial messaging standard last November. According to Bottomline’s Edward Ireland, “The market will reward those who connect ISO data quality with automated investigations, transparent tracking, and clear confirmations,” adding that by the end of 2026, he expects a tangible reduction in processing times and an increase in STP rates as a result of the mass migration to improved ISO 20022 messaging in Q4 2025.
Here again, the enhancements are both measurable and bankable (ROI). In an environment where speed and security must coexist, success this year will belong to FIs and corporates that measure what matters, verify before they move, and treat payments as a strategic capability, not just a transaction.
For deeper perspectives on these trends, head over to our blog page, or tune into the latest episodes of The Payments Podcast, where industry experts share practical guidance for navigating 2026’s B2B payments landscape.