Dive Brief:

• Card networks Visa and Mastercard both expect development of digital identity tools to take center stage this year, the companies said in separate online posts last month. Verifying identities has become crucial in allowing consumers and businesses to make payments, and avoid fraud, at a time when artificial intelligence is transforming commerce, they explained.
• Payments technology and software firm ACI Worldwide predicted last month that real-time payments, along with mobile wallets and new digital asset rails, will get more traction this year as they offer a channel to draw more individuals into the financial system.
• Fleet services provider Wex sees embedded payments gathering momentum this year, particularly for business-to-business payments, according to its forecast last month. It pointed to a projection from consulting firm Bain that heralded $7 trillion in embedded payments volume for 2026, for a more than two-fold increase over the past five years, according to the report.

Dive Insight:

Many companies in the payments sphere have pointed to AI, stablecoins and agentic commerce as key themes this year for the industry, but there are a number of other trends picking up speed. That’s due mainly to the dramatic impact of new technology in the payments arena in recent years that have changed consumers’ digital habits and forced regulators to catch up to the changes. 

Visa, and its no. 2 rival Mastercard, are particularly focused on how to guard legitimate payments in the new AI age, and fend off fraudulent transactions. It won’t be easy.

“2026 will, unfortunately, see a material increase in the sophistication and volume of these AI powered identity attacks,” Visa Group President Oliver Jenkyn said in the company’s Dec. 15 post. “This escalation will herald a new AI battle for identity with increased investment, focus and partnership.”

Mastercard is also preparing for agentic commerce in which computerized bots, or agents, shop on behalf of consumers, and maybe even make payments. “The industry is focused on how to identify that an agent is legitimate, how to strengthen authentication with agents and reduce fraud, and how to capture intent in case an AI transaction goes awry,” Mastercard said in its Dec. 3 post regarding 2026 trends. 

Agents involved in this type of commerce will rely on Mastercard’s tokenization technology, as do digital wallets, the network’s chief digital officer, Pablo Fourez, said in an interview last month.

“Mastercard tokens will provide [the agents] access, and they then agree to work with us to make this transaction secure,” Fourez explained. “One of the things that happens is, then, when they're accessing a merchant site, they can identify themselves to the merchant.”

Payments generally are happening at a faster pace, thanks to speedier digital rails.

Since the roll-out of real-time payments in the U.S. by The Clearing House and the Federal Reserve over the past decade, banks have slowly begun to offer such services to consumers and businesses. But the availability of such instant payments could pick up this year, said Philip Bruno, ACI’s chief strategy and growth officer.

“I think we're going to see more adoption [of real-time payments] next year, and I think that adoption will be at an increasing pace,” Bruno said during an interview last month. 

He cited the arrival of more use cases for real-time payments as a driver for that growth, specifically noting the Treasury Department’s decision in October to use the method for delivery of some Federal Emergency Management Agency distributions.

Meanwhile, Wex is focused on how businesses, like consumers, will increasingly rely on payments almost invisibly tucked into their daily routines.

“We’ve all experienced embedded payments in our personal lives — booking a ride, ordering takeout, or paying a subscription without ever leaving the app,” the company said in its list of 2026 trends to watch. “That same expectation is coming to B2B.”