But according to the January 2026 “Wage to Wallet Index: The Divided Recovery: Labor Economy Workers Face an Uncertain 2026,” a collaboration between PYMNTS Intelligence, WorkWhile and Ingo Payments, the financial lives of consumers, particularly lower- and middle-income workers, are increasingly shaped by volatility, including flat income expectations, rising expenses and limited confidence in future earnings.

And if consumers are focused on avoiding financial slippage rather than maximizing spending, the payment and FinTech industry’s value proposition changes.

In such an environment, success is measured less by how often a card is used and more by whether the user avoids late fees, maintains a positive balance or manages to build modest savings.

This opens the door to what might be termed “outcome-based payments,” meaning products that are evaluated, and potentially priced, according to their ability to improve financial health metrics.

Payments as Infrastructure for Labor Markets

In a world where users are trying to avoid falling behind, winning products will be judged not by activity, but by financial outcomes. Early examples of this type of innovation include alerts that help users avoid overdrafts, automated savings features that skim small amounts after each pay cycle and dashboards that track progress in reducing debt.

Still, for providers, this represents both an opportunity and a challenge. The opportunity lies in deeper engagement and differentiation. The challenge is that these outcomes are harder to measure, and in some cases require integration with credit, savings and employment data.

The “Labor Economy” described in the PYMNTS report encompasses workers in logistics, retail, hospitality and care. These are all roles that are essential to economic functioning but often characterized by variable hours and modest wages. These workers account for a substantial share of consumer spending and, by extension, economic growth.

For this segment, the way income is delivered and managed is not a peripheral issue. It is central to financial resilience. The same PYMNTS data shows that a significant share of workers do not expect their financial situation to improve in the coming year, with many prioritizing stability over advancement.

Against this backdrop, credit-led growth models may encounter resistance if consumers are wary of taking on additional obligations. At the same time, rewards and incentives tied to higher spending may resonate less with users focused on controlling outflows.

Read the report: Wage to Wallet Index: The Divided Recovery: Labor Economy Workers Face an Uncertain 2026

If the primary user need is stability, then payment begins to resemble a utility: a foundational service that underpins day-to-day economic activity, rather than a feature layered on top of it. Like utilities in other sectors, its value is judged by reliability and consistency as much as by performance.

Employers and labor platforms are beginning to recognize this. Features such as earned wage access, instant payouts and integrated financial tools are positioned not as perks, but as components of the employment offer. In a tight labor market, the ability to provide predictable and flexible access to earnings can influence retention and participation.

This blurs the boundaries between payments, human resources and financial services. Payroll systems are evolving into financial interfaces; gig platforms are embedding banking-like functionality; and payments providers are finding themselves closer to the core of employment relationships than at any point in the past.

For payments companies, this suggests a reorientation. The competitive edge may lie not in enabling incremental consumption, but in reducing the likelihood of financial disruption.

Data has become a decisive force in payments, but most firms still struggle to use it with precision.

That distinction, according to Max Spivakovsky, senior director of global payments risk management at Galileo, is separating firms that merely collect information from those that convert it into sustained advantage.

“Data is one of the biggest plays right now in the market,” he said. “The lagging organizations treat the data as a storage problem while the leading organizations actually treat it as a decisioning system.”

Spivakovsky pointed to decision quality as the central metric governing success, arguing that leading organizations are not simply reacting faster but are measuring whether those reactions produce better results.

Firms that integrate customer, operational and financial data into a single view are better positioned to act with speed and context. Spivakovsky said breaking down silos allows companies to “be much more proactive,” particularly when responding to customer needs or emerging risks.

Anecdotal evidence illustrates the point. In one case, analysis of negative balances enabled a program to extend minimal overdraft flexibility, which in turn strengthened engagement among established users. The improvement was modest in dollar terms but meaningful in behavior, suggesting that precise data application can influence both retention and revenue.

AI Reshapes Payments and Fraud Decisioning

The role of artificial intelligence (AI) has intensified that evolution. In a “What’s Next in Payments” series discussion focused on the “data game,” Spivakovsky described how AI is altering both the speed and quality of decision-making across payments and fraud management.

Within payments, AI is already optimizing routing, reconciliation and exception handling, which reduces unnecessary declines and shortens onboarding timelines. “It helps to optimize routing, reconciliation and exception handling,” he told PYMNTS, resulting in “fewer necessary declines from the customer perspective and quicker onboarding.”

In fraud, the shift is more structural. Traditional rule-based systems are proving insufficient against increasingly complex attack patterns. AI-driven models, by contrast, can adapt continuously. The traditional fraud system relied on fixed rules, Spivakovsky said, noting that “modern fraud is moving too quickly for purely static approaches.”

The result is a transition toward real-time, adaptive decisioning that integrates new data as it emerges, rather than relying on preset thresholds.

Unified Views and the Feedback Loop

Beyond speed, the quality of customer engagement is also changing. Spivakovsky emphasized the importance of unified data environments that consolidate disparate information into a single perspective. These environments enable firms to respond more precisely to customer behavior while maintaining consistency.

Equally important is the feedback loop that such systems create. Organizations that learn from each interaction, rather than treating transactions as isolated events, develop insights that competitors find difficult to replicate.

This iterative process supports more tailored engagement strategies, particularly in segments with varying risk profiles. Firms serving gig workers, for example, cannot apply identical controls to higher-income customers without introducing friction or misjudging risk.

End-User Experience Improves With Precision

For end users, the practical effect of these changes is reduced friction and more consistent approvals. Data-driven personalization allows institutions to distinguish between low-risk and high-risk behaviors with greater accuracy.

Spivakovsky framed the objective in operational terms. “The best companies use data … to make good customers move faster, while at the same time reserving the scrutiny only for the high risk situations,” he said.

That balance, he suggested, improves both customer satisfaction and approval rates by minimizing unnecessary intervention while maintaining vigilance where it matters.

Fine-Tuning Fraud Responses

The refinement of fraud controls is another area where data is having meaningful impact. Rather than applying uniform rules, firms are beginning to tailor responses based on broader context, including customer history and transaction patterns.

Spivakovsky cited internal scoring approaches that allow institutions to calibrate fraud responses in line with both risk tolerance and brand posture. The objective is not to increase the volume of data, but to ensure that relevant data is delivered at the right moment to inform decisions.

“It’s not about flooding the teams … it’s actually about giving them the right data,” he said.

Who Wins the Data Game

Looking ahead 12 to 24 months, Spivakovsky expects the advantage to accrue to firms that combine broad data visibility with disciplined execution. The ability to make rapid decisions is necessary but insufficient without governance and transparency.

Firms that treat data as an evolving system rather than a static asset are building capabilities that extend beyond immediate gains. As Spivakovsky put it, “the companies that win will treat trust, identity and security as core part of their data strategy overall.”

AI is no longer just guiding purchases; it’s beginning to execute them. As agentic commerce, where AI systems initiate transactions on behalf of consumers, takes hold, the payments ecosystem is entering a new phase defined by machine-driven speed, scale and complexity.

PYMNTS Intelligence research shows that consumer appetite for this shift is already significant. Nearly half of consumers express interest in AI agents handling tasks such as grocery shopping or meal planning, signaling that trust in autonomous purchasing is quickly moving from concept to reality. As demand accelerates, payment infrastructure is becoming the critical layer that determines whether agentic commerce can function securely and seamlessly.

Yet most existing systems weren’t designed for this environment. Legacy payment infrastructure, built for human-initiated, linear transactions, struggles to support the high-velocity, cross-platform activity generated by autonomous agents. These systems often lack the flexibility to process parallel transactions, enforce granular controls or adapt in real time, creating friction when speed and precision matter most.

As AI-driven transactions scale, fraud threats are evolving just as quickly. Traditional detection models rooted in human behavior patterns are increasingly ineffective against machine-speed attacks. This creates a gap between how transactions are initiated and secured, raising concerns around authorization, identity verification and compliance.

To close that gap, a new generation of intelligent card platforms is emerging. These systems combine real-time decisioning and programmable controls, while tokenization protects sensitive credentials and enables agents to transact without exposing card details. Using cloud-based, API-driven architectures, issuers can manage transaction context more effectively. They can also scale as volumes rise and maintain consistent performance across increasingly complex ecosystems.

As agentic commerce moves toward mainstream adoption, infrastructure choices are becoming strategic differentiators. Payment providers that modernize now can enable seamless, trusted machine-driven transactions. Those that don’t risk becoming bottlenecks in an increasingly automated economy.

About “The Intelligent Spend Shift: How Card Platforms Can Prepare for Agentic Commerce”

The April 2026 edition of the “Payments Innovation Tracker^®,” a collaboration with Paymentology, examines how agentic commerce is redefining payments infrastructure requirements and how intelligent, API-enabled platforms are enabling secure, scalable autonomous transactions.

Bill payments occupy a central place in the financial lives of consumers, where obligation meets emotional uncertainty.

For providers, that reality complicates what might otherwise be treated as a straightforward digital interaction. Consumers approach the payment moment with competing priorities, financial constraints, and often, anxiety about what comes next.

The result is a payment experience that demands more than speed or convenience, as Paymentus Vice President Christine Weber told PYMNTS in a recent interview.

Fragmented Landscape of Preferences

The bill payment ecosystem reflects a wide range of preferences that resist standardization. Some consumers favor mobile interfaces and digital wallets, while others continue to rely on interactive voice response systems or traditional channels that feel familiar and dependable.

This fragmentation places pressure on service providers to maintain multiple pathways without introducing friction. Weber said innovation must complement, not replace, continuity.

“There’s always going to be a very broad range demographic who have preferences,” Weber said. “There’s always going to be a shiny object that’s coming down the road … but you can’t sway from getting the basics right.”

The implication is clear: Modernization cannot come at the expense of accessibility. Providers must accommodate both early adopters and those who remain anchored to established payment behaviors.

Emotional Weight of Paying Bills

Weber emphasized that bill payments cannot be reduced to a mechanical exchange of funds. The moment carries psychological consequences that shape how consumers engage with providers.

That stress intensifies at the point of action.

“When you get to that ‘pay now’ button, it’s a shot of cortisol,” Weber said. “It’s not just a digital transaction.”

This framing shifts the responsibility of providers. Payment experiences must reflect an understanding of the individual behind the transaction, not simply the completion of the transaction itself.

“There’s an empathetic aspect that needs to be really focused on in order to get that long-term relationship to really stick,” she noted.

Systems That Must Always Work

While empathy shapes the design philosophy, execution still depends on reliability. Weber described system availability as foundational.

“You want the system to be available 100% of the time whenever somebody goes in to use it,” Weber said. “That’s kind of table stakes at this point.”

Yet reliability extends beyond uptime. It also includes anticipating the user’s state of mind and reducing friction at critical moments.

“We need to think about what is going through that person’s mind when they sit down to pay,” Weber said. “We’re at this inflection point of psychology and finances.”

In practical terms, that means designing systems that guide users through uncertainty rather than leaving them to navigate it alone.

Toward a Concierge-Like Experience

Weber described an emerging model in which bill payment platforms adopt a more interactive and supportive role.

That touch point can be used to provide options that reduce pressure on the user. Partial payments, installment plans and flexible timing can transform the experience from one of constraint to one of managed choice.

This approach resembles a concierge model, where the platform anticipates needs and offers assistance without requiring the user to seek help directly. The goal is to provide what Weber described as “invisible support,” embedded within the payment journey.

Defining the Ideal Experience

Weber drew a distinction between reactive service and proactive relationships, arguing that bill payments offer an opportunity to build trust rather than merely resolve transactions.

The ideal experience allows users to maintain dignity while meeting obligations. Features such as installment options or payment deferrals can support that goal without forcing difficult conversations.

“You’ve got to allow them to preserve their dignity,” Weber said. “If we give them a snooze button … or an installment option, we’re relating everything back to the feelings that go along with paying a bill.”

Building for the Long Term

Ultimately, Weber framed bill payments as a recurring interaction that can either erode or strengthen relationships over time.

“If you want to turn a stressful monthly activity … into a trust deposit, then you’ve got to move beyond just being a utility and be a partner,” she told PYMNTS.

The financial system has a clearing problem, and it’s not about broken technology. It’s about who the technology was built to serve, and more importantly, who it wasn’t.

Lorum Co-Founder and CEO George Davis made that point in a conversation with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, explaining how the current clearing and settlement ecosystem was designed around a set of participants and incentives that no longer reflect the full range of institutions that depend on it. Payment service providers, FinTechs and mid-market financial institutions are operating in that system today, but they’re accessing it indirectly, through chains of intermediaries shaped by lending priorities rather than by the actual needs of money movement.

The result is a structure that works well for the largest banks and poorly for nearly everyone beneath them. Institutions that need predictable, real-time treasury and trade capabilities find themselves reliant on correspondent relationships that weren’t built with that goal in mind. And because the incentives at the top of that chain are tied to deposits and lending rather than the efficient movement of funds, the gap doesn’t close on its own.

The Incentive Problem at the Heart of Clearing

Davis described the core distortion plainly. Large correspondent banks have historically offered payments at minimal cost because their business model depends on capturing the underlying deposit and lending against it. They’re not in the business of moving money efficiently. They’re in the business of holding it.

The customer needs it to arrive quickly and on a known schedule. Those two interests aren’t aligned, and that misalignment has been baked into the infrastructure that PSPs and FinTechs are now being asked to build on top of.

“They’re offering payments for free or as close to free as they can possibly go because they need to monetize the underlying deposit. So they want more of your volume, more of your money going through their platform so they can lend it and make their money based off of that,” Davis emphasized. That model made sense when the ecosystem was smaller. It doesn’t scale to meet what the market needs today.

Where PSPs and FinTechs Get Left Behind

For PSPs and FinTechs building cross-border payment services, that misalignment creates friction that’s hard to engineer around. Prefunding requirements scatter liquidity across multiple accounts and counterparties. Settlement visibility is limited. The infrastructure that’s available to them is whatever the larger institutions were willing to share, priced and configured to support someone else’s business model.

Mid-sized banks, platforms and payment providers don’t have direct access to central clearing systems, so they rely on intermediary chains. Each link in that chain adds complexity, reduces visibility into how funds are positioned, and introduces uncertainty about when settlement will actually occur. For treasury teams trying to manage liquidity in real time, that uncertainty is a real operational cost.

Davis noted that access to dollar clearing remains uneven even outside the U.S. system, and that established institutions can still struggle to secure reliable correspondent services. The problem isn’t confined to smaller players or emerging markets. It’s structural.

What a Trust Bank Charter Actually Changes

Lorum’s application for a U.S. national trust bank charter is designed to change where it sits in that chain. Direct access to central clearing systems would allow the firm to operate closer to where settlement actually occurs, cutting out the intermediary layers that add cost and reduce transparency. The economic model shifts along with it.

Rather than treating payments as a loss leader to fund lending revenue, Lorum’s model is built around charging for clearing, custody and treasury services as standalone capabilities. Davis described Lorum’s intent as functioning as a “specialized correspondent,” one whose incentives are aligned with how its customers actually use the system rather than with how much of their deposits it can hold.

In practice, that means PSPs and FinTechs that work with Lorum could reduce their prefunding requirements, improve visibility into liquidity positions and redeploy funds more quickly after settlement. Those aren’t incremental improvements. For institutions operating cross-border payment services at scale, they’re foundational to what a modern treasury function needs to look like.

Building for the Institutions That Got Left Out

Davis described the target market as institutions that sit below the largest global banks but require comparable capabilities. That’s a significant portion of the market. It includes PSPs, FinTechs, regional banks and nonbank financial institutions that need to move money across borders reliably and build their own payment products on infrastructure they can actually depend on.

Webster made the comparison to Stripe, new payments infrastructure built for a new way of transacting using mobile devices and apps. The Stripe comparison that Webster raised in the conversation is useful here. The analogy isn’t about payment processing. It’s about what happens when you abstract access to infrastructure that was previously only available through relationships with large incumbents. Stripe didn’t fix payments by replacing the card networks. It made them more accessible to developers and businesses that couldn’t previously reach them. Lorum is making the same argument about clearing.

The expansion of financial platforms, marketplaces and nonbank institutions has increased demand for clearing and treasury services significantly over the past decade. The infrastructure hasn’t expanded at the same pace, and what’s available has been distributed unevenly. That’s the gap Lorum is positioning itself to fill, initially for institutions that need global clearing capabilities but haven’t been able to access them directly.

Clearing Stays Central No Matter How Payments Evolve

On the question of new payment rails and digital assets, Davis was clear about what changes and what doesn’t. Whether a transaction enters the system via a stablecoin, a tokenized deposit or a Swift message, clearing and settlement remain the foundation. The path to real-time, global treasury capability runs through better access to central bank systems, not around them.

Lorum’s model, as Davis described it, is agnostic to how a transaction enters the system. “Whether they enter that ecosystem via a stablecoin or a tokenized deposit or whether they enter it via a Swift payment, we’re agnostic to that because our job is to give you the best access to clear over those direct central bank systems everywhere in the world that we operate and give you accounts that are interoperable.”

That’s a meaningful position to stake out as the payments landscape continues to fragment. New instruments and new rails are multiplying, but they all eventually need to settle somewhere. The institutions that control access to that settlement layer hold a structural advantage, and right now that advantage is concentrated at the top of the correspondent banking hierarchy.

The Opportunity Is in Getting the Incentives Right

The opportunity Lorum is pursuing isn’t built on the premise that the current system is broken. Davis acknowledged it functions. The premise is that it hasn’t scaled to serve the full range of institutions that need it, and that the incentives governing how it operates have kept that gap in place.

“The system works really, really well,” Davis told Webster. “It’s just that the incentives and the participants are wrong. And so the idea for us really is, can we build the correctly incentivized participant everywhere in the world.”

This capability is provided by the integration of PayPal Payment Links into Canva, PayPal said in a Thursday (April 9) press release emailed to PYMNTS.

Creators, entrepreneurs and small businesses use Canva to create content. Now, with this integration, they can accept payments directly from their designs instead of sending customers to external websites or separate storefronts, according to the release.

This solution enables Canva users to tap into social commerce sales, regardless of format or channel, the release said.

With PayPal Payment Links, Canva users can create a payment link or QR code to add PayPal to their designs; generate a PayPal-hosted payment page that they can customize with their own product images, details and pricing; and accept payments across social platforms, email, messaging apps and in person, per the release.

They can also accept payments in multiple currencies, reach customers across about 200 markets, and receive trackable receipts and transaction reporting.

“Today’s entrepreneurs are no longer only building traditional storefronts — they are creating profitable businesses in real time through social content, online communities and direct conversations,” Taira Hall, senior vice president and head of SMB Commercial at PayPal, said in the release. “By pairing PayPal’s trusted global payment infrastructure with Canva’s creative workflow, we’re reducing the friction between inspiration and income and meeting them at point of need.”

Canva users can find the PayPal Payment Links app in the Canva Marketplace.

“Whether someone’s launching their first product, booking their next clients, or selling at a weekend market, having PayPal Payment Links right inside Canva means you can go from a bold idea to getting paid in just a few clicks, without ever leaving their design,” Emily MacDonald, head of revenue platform at Canva, said in the release.

PYMNTS reported in November 2024 that the integration of social media and eCommerce has led to the rise of social commerce that allows consumers to make direct purchases within social platforms.

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “Generational Pulse: Just How Influential Are Influencers?” found that influencer marketing has become a routine part of shopping and that more than half of U.S. consumers buy something recommended by an influencer at least once a year.

Payments increasingly determine how consumers perceive large purchases, and few transactions carry more weight than buying or maintaining a vehicle.

In automotive commerce, where transactions often rank among the largest in a household budget, the mechanics of how money moves now influence both margins and customer relationships, and the operations of dealers, too.

Amberly Allen, founder and managing partner of Priority Commerce Automotive, said the industry’s reach underscores the stakes. “One in every four people in the United States is either affected directly or indirectly by the automotive industry,” she said, noting its central role in local economies and household spending priorities.

That reach is matched by its place in consumer budgets. “When people are spending their money, it first goes to their home, second to their healthcare, and then third to automotive,” Allen told PYMNTS.

A Multi-Party Ecosystem Under Strain

Automotive commerce operates across a network of OEMs, lenders, service providers and dealerships. Dealers sit at the center, managing both the customer relationship and the flow of funds.

That position has become more difficult as payment costs rise and systems age. Fragmented infrastructure limits visibility, while disruptions can halt operations entirely. Allen referenced past system outages that left dealerships unable to process transactions or complete sales, illustrating how dependent the industry has become on reliable payment infrastructure.

Margin Pressure and the Cost of Acceptance

Automotive commerce faces a set of pressures that extend beyond vehicle sales. Margins have tightened over time, while customers have gained more visibility into pricing and are holding onto vehicles longer, increasing reliance on parts and service revenue.

“Margins are shrinking in automotive,” Allen said. “What [dealers] saw 15 years ago is so vastly different than what they see today.”

Against that backdrop, payments costs have moved from a secondary concern to a core operating issue. “This is one of dealer’s top 10 expenses as it pertains to credit card processing,” she said.

Dealers are responding by examining the “cost of acceptance” alongside cash flow timing. Faster access to funds and tighter control over payment expenses are no longer optional but are central to maintaining profitability.

Customer Experience and Payment Complexity

The pressure to manage costs collides with another priority: preserving the customer experience. In automotive retail, that experience is formally measured. Allen pointed to the Customer Service Index, or CSI, which influences manufacturer incentives, employee compensation and even dealership expansion. “Dealers take this relationship with their customers very, very seriously,” she said.

That creates tension when introducing practices such as surcharging. Dealers must balance recovering costs with maintaining trust. “We don’t want to trip over dollars to pick up pennies as it pertains to our customers, but we can’t ignore this massive cost of acceptance,” Allen said.

Payments themselves add complexity. Automotive transactions involve multiple systems and stakeholders, and legacy platforms were not designed for modern expectations. Many dealership systems “were built just to accept payments,” leaving gaps in visibility and control, Allen said. The result is a fragmented environment where speed, cost and predictability of cash flow are not always aligned.

Dealers are moving toward more unified payment environments that provide a consolidated view of transactions and cash flow. The goal is not simply to process payments, but to understand them in real time.

“It’s really about how fast you get paid, what it costs, and the predictability of the cash flow,” Allen told PYMNTS.

Surcharging, Compliance and Integration

Surcharging has emerged as one response to rising costs, though it introduces its own risks. According to Allen, 35% of dealers currently apply surcharges, leaving a significant portion still weighing the trade-offs.

The practice requires careful execution. Transparency is essential, particularly at the point of estimate rather than at checkout. “That transparency is really important to happen at the time of estimate, as opposed to a surprise at the end,” she said.

Compliance adds another layer of complexity. Dealers must distinguish between compliant surcharges and prohibited practices, while ensuring customers have alternative payment options. Missteps can damage customer relationships and expose dealers to regulatory risk.

Allen described the process as “a bit of a landmine,” requiring guidance across legal, network and operational requirements.

This has increased demand for integrated solutions that combine payment processing, compliance management and staff training. A single point of integration can help reduce fragmentation while aligning cost control with customer experience.

Payments are becoming a strategic function within automotive commerce, shaping both economics and customer perception. Dealers that gain visibility into payment flows and align them with operational goals are better positioned to manage margins and improve service. Those that rely on legacy systems risk falling behind.

Allen said the shift requires a broader view of payments as part of a unified commerce platform rather than a standalone function. “It’s not just about accepting payments anymore,” she said.

As automotive commerce continues to evolve, payments will remain central to how value is created and preserved. The challenge for dealers is to manage cost pressures without undermining the relationships that sustain their business.

Allen emphasized that balance, telling PYMNTS that with right approach, “it can be done very, very successfully.”

The CHIPS network recorded year-over-year gains of 9% in average daily value, which reached $2.014 trillion, and 12% in average daily volume, The Clearing House said in a Tuesday (April 7) press release emailed to PYMNTS.

The network delivered daily average economic savings of $15.4 million, up from $14.3 million in 2024, and annualized savings of $5.5 billion, according to the release.

It did so by continuously matching and offsetting payments so that participants could recycle liquidity earlier and more effectively, the release said.

For banks, these savings represent capital that they can use for lending, investment and client activity, rather than having it trapped in payment prefunding requirements, per the release.

“The CHIPS network provides participating banks the ability to adapt their intraday liquidity posture to real-world conditions while still achieving best-in-class liquidity and economic savings,” Michael Knorr, senior vice president, CHIPS product management at The Clearing House, said in the release. “For banks and their clients, this allows for more flexibility to redeploy capital and have consistent access to funding.”

The speedier payment cycle times enabled by the CHIPS network mean that banks (and by extension their clients) get money in hand more quickly to be deployed into lending and other activities and that better information is available on the status of the payments, Knorr told PYMNTS in an interview posted in February 2025.

“Banks are interested beyond the liquidity savings mechanism and will consider participating in CHIPS so that they can route transactions by Fedwire or CHIPS and can dynamically switch between them to make sure they have a more resilient payment infrastructure in place,” Knorr added.

The Clearing House said in December 2025 that all three of its payment networks, including CHIPS, EPN and RTP, have seen strong growth.

“Setting new milestones for value and volume across real time, ACH and wire payments validates the investments we’ve made to support efficiency, resiliency and innovation across the U.S. payments ecosystem,” Pat Antonacci, chief product officer at The Clearing House, said in a Dec. 4 press release.

Drawing on the Global Payments Tracker Series report, “Moving Money Forward: The Power of Payment Hubs,” the story is not just that customers want faster payments. It is that fragmented payment infrastructure is now directly shaping who keeps those customers and who risks losing them.

The report argues that payment hubs are becoming a practical answer to that pressure. A payment hub brings multiple payment types into one unified platform, helping banks route transactions more intelligently and give customers a more consistent experience across ACH, wires, debit and real-time rails. That matters because payment experience is now closely tied to customer loyalty.

Pressure From Digital First Competition

Banks are under growing pressure from digital-first competitors that have trained consumers and businesses to expect speed, transparency and simplicity. Payment hubs, in that context, are presented not just as an IT upgrade but as a way for banks to modernize service, reduce internal friction and compete more effectively.

• 57% of organizations experience friction in payment processing at least once a week, a sign that payment pain points remain common and frequent.
• 60% of banks have implemented payment hubs or are in the process of doing so, suggesting this is moving from early adoption to a more mainstream modernization track.
• $98.5 million is the average annual loss businesses face due to disruptions and inefficiencies in money movement, underscoring how payment modernization affects costs as much as customer experience.

What stands out beyond those headline figures is how broadly the report defines the value of a payment hub. The customer-facing case is straightforward. Faster transactions, instant confirmations and clearer information on timing and fees can make a bank feel easier to use.

But the back-office case may be just as important.

Hubs can automate workflows, reduce manual intervention, lower maintenance burdens and simplify compliance and fraud controls. That gives banks a path to do more than fix isolated pain points. It gives them a way to shrink technical complexity that has built up over years of operating separate systems for separate rails.

There is also a strategic upside here. Banks have often been cast as slower-moving institutions trying to catch up with FinTechs. There is a more encouraging read. A well-designed payment hub can help traditional banks use their scale, trust and customer base more effectively by pairing those strengths with more modern infrastructure.

Modular, API-based hubs can help institutions add services such as cross-border payments and request-to-pay more easily, without the same level of upfront overhaul.

That leaves the broader takeaway. Payment hubs are not simply about making payments faster. They are about making banks easier to do business with, while also giving operations teams better visibility and control.

In a market where customers increasingly judge financial institutions by the quality of everyday digital experiences, that is a meaningful shift. For banks looking for a practical modernization play, payment hubs may offer something valuable: a way to improve today’s payment journey while preparing for what customers will expect next.

At PYMNTS Intelligence, we work with businesses to uncover insights that fuel intelligent, data-driven discussions on changing customer expectations, a more connected economy and the strategic shifts necessary to achieve outcomes. With rigorous research methodologies and unwavering commitment to objective quality, we offer trusted data to grow your business. As our partner, you’ll have access to our diverse team of PhDs, researchers, data analysts, number crunchers, subject matter veterans and editorial experts.