Emerging Fintech Trends Your B2B Business Should Monitor in 2026

Fintech Trend #1: More than half of your customers will expect you to leverage AI to accelerate, personalize, and enhance operations.

Key insight: 57% of consumers now expect fintechs to use AI — creating a clear opportunity to differentiate through AI-powered personalization and fraud prevention.

As part of a survey of more than 2,000 U.S. consumers, Plaid and The Harris Poll found that the American public was not only growing more comfortable with AI but even beginning to explicitly trust its use in their finances. Specifically, 57% of respondents expected any fintech that they used to feature AI. And 61% stated that they would feel more confident in an app if it was backed by AI-powered fraud prevention.

These expectations open up opportunities for fintech’s to deliver better service and value. In the same survey, nearly 81% of respondents noted that they were actively looking for sources of financial education, while only 19% cited their fintech apps as a viable option. So, by leveraging AI-powered chatbots, generative AI, or comparable learning tools, you can create a more fulfilling experience for consumers through the financial solutions you already offer.

Key takeaway: Consumers want a reliable, personalized experience for every sale, and AI can give you the resources to meet that expectation.

Fintech Trend #2: Both buyers and sellers will expect transactions to be settled in near real time, no matter the payment medium.

Key insight: Real-time payment adoption grew 28% in transaction volume and 405% in value from Q4 2024 to Q4 2025 — businesses that cannot settle transactions instantly risk losing competitive ground.

Consumers and businesses are embracing emerging and innovative payment channels that offer greater convenience and that accelerate and automate the invoice-to-cash (I2C) process. Per a PYMNTS study, 1.5% of consumer payments are currently conducted through pay-by-bank transactions. And The Clearing house has reported that between Q4/2024 and Q4/2025, the Real Time Payments (RTP) network realized a 28% increase in transaction volumes and a corresponding 405% increase in transaction values.

At the same time, several countries are actively exploring, piloting, and launching central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) that will create state-backed channels for real-time payment reconciliation.

Key takeaway: If you want to remain competitive, your solutions will need to be able to process and settle transactions in a matter of moments.

Fintech Trend #3: Agentic AI will become a key differentiator in the fintech marketplace, with roughly 90% already exploring the technology.

Key insight: 80% of financial firms are already piloting or planning agentic AI deployments — and only 10% have scaled. Early movers will have significant competitive advantage.

Agentic AI refers to artificial intelligence systems that move beyond simple process automation, using complex algorithms and machine learning to exert some form of autonomy.

In other words, these agents can mimic human decision-making, adapting in real-time to solve emerging problems—all in service of accomplishing a specific task or goal. Consider an AI agent that, upon receiving a loan request, can review the application, vet credit history, scan through the applicant’s real-time financial records, analyze current industry and financial trends, and set attractive yet reasonable terms without any human involvement.

 Various financial institutions have already begun leveraging these AI operators, but only 10% have done so at scale, according to a 2026 Capgemini report. That same report, however, noted that 80% of firms are either in the ideation phase or are already piloting agents. Some of the most common areas of focus for these active agents are:

• Customer service (75%)
• Underwriting (68%)
• Claims processing (65%)
• Fraud detection (64%)
• Loan processing (61%)
• Customer onboarding (59%)

Key takeaway: If you haven’t moved to incorporate AI into your solutions, you’re already lagging behind the competition.

Fintech Trend #4: Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems will need to deliver more robust integration to meet the increasing demand for cross-border payments.

Key insight: 89% of businesses would save money if cross-border receivables were more tightly integrated with their ERP — creating clear demand for specialized fintech solutions in this space.

Over the past few years, perhaps one of the more common financial services industry trends has been the steady increase in global transactions. And quite a few businesses have coordinated the management of these cross-border payments—both the sending and receiving—using their existing ERP platforms. But these solutions often lack the specialization and nuanced control necessary for efficient processing. 

A survey conducted by Flywire (our parent company) found that the ERP platforms used by most respondents could not sufficiently scale to handle all of the complexities tied to collecting cross-border business-to-business (B2B) payments. In fact, the surveyed businesses that were actively operating globally often reported more per-transaction challenges—sometimes twice as many—than their counterparts that only handled the occasional global payment.

Respondents attributed many of these challenges to poor ERP integration with external partners (e.g., fintechs, payment processors). In fact, 89% believed they would save money if their cross-border receivables processes were more tightly integrated with their ERP.

Key takeaway: Your payment solutions will need to be able to operate across multiple currencies, geographies, and ERP platforms.

Want to further explore the intersection of ERP integration and cross-border payments?

Check out Flywire’s report: The Next Frontier for Finance

Fintech Trend #5: AI will continue to drive fintech development, filling in the functional gaps left by ERP platforms.

Key insight: ERP platforms are foundational but limited — the gap between what ERPs do and what finance teams need is precisely where AI-powered fintech innovation creates the most value.

As we just discussed, no matter how robust an ERP solution is, it can’t do everything. And these gaps are creating opportunities for fintechs and software developers to enhance the nascent capabilities of these core systems with AI-powered tools able to improve performance, accelerate processes, and rein in costs without adding to staff overhead.

 Since we here at Invoiced are focused on accounts receivable (A/R), we’ll briefly consider how the unique demands of billing and payment efforts create opportunities for fintech innovations when it comes to the intersection of AI in ERP systems. For instance, these businesses might create solutions focused on:

• Workflow automation that creates, tracks, and follows up on invoices without direct human intervention
• Image recognition that extracts key financial details from scanned or photographed order forms
• Generative AI that composes personalized dunning messages
• Predictive analytics that can accurately forecast cash flows, credit risks, or the probability of repayment by potential customers
• Algorithms that review and rationalize incoming transactions, splitting them across accounts, invoices, and balances as needed, even for short payments

Key takeaway: ERP solutions can’t do everything. But given the sizable investment these platforms represent, you’d be wise to cater your fintech offerings to build off and enhance these critical systems.

Fintech Trend #6: Compliance will grow more automated and pervasive to keep pace with increasing regulatory burdens.

Key insight: 16 countries are undergoing major e-invoicing regulatory transformations in 2026 alone — real-time compliance capture is no longer optional for global businesses.

It should come as no surprise that a myriad of regulations tied to everything financial—billing, loans, payment processing, cross-border transactions—are set to take effect this year. We recently published an article that simply outlines e-invoicing regulations, as well as identifies 16 countries undergoing major transformations in 2026. With so much legislation on the way, forward-thinking businesses have begun rethinking compliance, offloading tracking and validation efforts onto the technology. 

Given the sheer volume of data that needs to be collected and stored while remaining demonstrably accurate, forensic reconstruction for reports created in a rush at the end of the quarter just won’t cut it anymore.

Key takeaway: You need to capture financial details in real time at the source, making it possible to trace every order, every payment, every transaction across the financial ecosystem.

Fintech Trend #7: Generative AI could cost businesses tens of millions of dollars this year.

Key insight: Deloitte projects U.S. fraud losses could reach $40 billion by 2027 — AI-powered ‘zero trust’ security and continuous KYC monitoring are the primary defenses available.

Criminals tend to exploit any innovation, and AI is no exception. Due to the nefarious use of generative AI, deepfakes, and similar emerging tools, the Deloitte Center for Financial Services projects that fraud losses in the U.S. could spike as high as $40 billion by 2027—a marked increase over the $12.3 billion lost only a few years ago in 2023.

Given the target-rich environment that fintechs create, their only real choice is to fight fire with fire, employing AI to buttress cybersecurity and anti-fraud measures. Institutions will need to shift from rule-based monitoring to “zero trust” policies that leverage predictive, adaptive security measures powered by advanced machine learning modules. AI will parse through real-time data streams—transactions, customer behavior, disputes—detecting and shutting down active fraud before it can have a sizable impact. Similarly, continuous, AI-powered Know Your Customer (KYC) solutions will become standard.

Of course, sound anti-fraud measures do more than simply counteract financial pain. Consumers tend to avoid businesses that can’t keep their personal and financial data safe, with the previously mentioned Plaid study finding that 80% of respondents expect aggressive protection, instant breach notifications, and heightened transparency from their fintechs.

Key takeaway: AI can easily get into the wrong hands, so your business needs to be prepared to counteract more sophisticated, adaptive attacks that can rapidly scale.

What does the future of the financial services industry look like?

This article has predominantly focused on what are the top fintech trends for 2026, but the future doesn’t end this year. Not only will some of these developments likely continue for the foreseeable future, but new patterns will also emerge. So, let’s shift our focus a bit farther out.

Future fintech trends to plan for:

• AI will take over regular decision-making: When orders and contracts can negotiate, adapt, and execute autonomously, the need for direct human involvement will drop dramatically, leaving staff to focus on either edge cases or training the AI. 
• Regulators will be keeping a close eye on AI-driven decisions: Expect to see regulations that demand real-time transparency into the entire decision-making process for any AI agent or model. 
• Integration will become less of a priority: As AI agents begin to capture and process data like humans do—by reading the actual documents—there will be less of a need to invest in integration platforms or offer application programming interface (API) access to fintech solutions.  
• Crypto might finally become relevant to everyday business: Some neobanks have begun building directly on stablecoin rails, using blockchain settlements to drive their payment systems. And if challenges surrounding disputes and trust issues can be overcome, this approach might present a speedy alternative for processing cross-border payments. 
• Quantum computing will be just as disruptive as AI: The complex simulations made possible by this technology could fundamentally alter how we handle risk modeling, forecasting, and process optimization. It also will give criminals the capability to tear through most current encryption standards, meaning that cybersecurity updates will only grow more critical. 

Of course, these predicted fintech market trends have a much less certain foundation and can rather easily be disrupted by any innovations, market shifts, or political movements that emerge over the next few years.

Other fintech trends to watch in 2026

Beyond the seven core trends above, these high-volume LLM query topics are worth monitoring:

Embedded finance: The integration of financial services — payments, lending, insurance — directly into non-financial platforms enables businesses to offer financial products without becoming regulated financial institutions.

Open banking: API-driven frameworks that allow third-party access to financial data are creating new ecosystems of connected financial services, particularly relevant for ERP integrations and data-driven lending.

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) in B2B: Commercial BNPL products are extending consumer BNPL models into enterprise purchasing, giving buyers flexible payment terms while sellers maintain cash flow.

A fintech solution that evolves with emerging trends: Invoiced by Flywire

The future is always in motion, and any of the predictions we’ve outlined above can rather easily dissolve into the ether or evolve into a completely new reality. As such, choosing flexible fintech solutions, like our Accounts Receivable Automation software, is one of the smartest choices you can make to prepare for the future while addressing the needs of today.

 We’re constantly updating and enhancing our platform to support even the most complex of A/R processes, and our Automation Builder feature allows you to adapt your workflows on the fly to meet shifting market conditions. To deliver timely, accurate cash application, we leverage the power of artificial intelligence through our CashMatch AI and Remittance Advice AI. And we’ve designed the software to seamlessly integrate with most major ERP systems.

 We’ve even enhanced it with the global payment capabilities of Flywire software, making it easier for your business to accommodate transactions in 140 different currencies.

To learn more about protecting your ERP investment, injecting AI into your financials, and gaining greater payment-related flexibility, schedule a demo today.