When the economy tightens, commercial payments don’t stand still—they adapt. And when conditions normalize, they adapt again. For providers operating in this uncertainty, the real question is how to position for both realities at once.
The 2026 Commercial Payments Factbook from Javelin Strategy & Research explores how these dynamics play out across ACH payments, virtual cards, real-time payments, and other types of corporate expenditures. Hugh Thomas, Lead Analyst of Commercial and Enterprise at Javelin and author of the report, hopes providers use it to assess risk exposure and respond with appropriate strategies.
The Benefits of Same Day ACH
In a high inflation environment, cash conversion cycles tend to slow, and holding onto cash becomes a higher priority. Under those circumstances, Thomas expects to see growing interest in Same Day ACH. It runs through the same processes as standard ACH, but settles funds on the same day it’s initiated—allowing payers to retain cash until the last possible moment while recipients still get paid quickly.
Consider circumstances like those seen during the Great Recession. A key determinant of survival for firms was the ability to extend payables when sales revenue slowed. That environment favors virtual cards, where the buyer can make a payment on day 20, but pay their card issuer on day 45. This effectively adds 15 days of payable float, with the card-issuing bank acting as an intermediary that helps balance both parties’ cash management needs.
The factbook also notes that RTP now accounts for a measurable share of B2B payment value, driven largely by adoption in high-ticket use cases such as home closings.
“Home sales make sense for RTP because they involve a big lump sum amount where the immediate and observable movement of funds reduces the risks of fraud and can eliminate some of the uncertainty around closing,” said Thomas. “It is going to be a question of where people begin to see value in that substitution between a lag and contractual obligations and the triggers around managing that lag, versus it happening immediately.”
“My guess is that businesses are very quickly going to identify other use cases where there’s value in knowing immediately that the funds have left the buyer’s account and are in the seller’s account,” he said.
Real-Time Payments Turn the Corner
Have real-time payments reached an inflection point in adoption? It’s not the beginning of the end, but rather the end of the beginning.
“When I would go to conferences or meet with clients as recently as six, seven years ago, we’d start talking about what is RTP going to get used for,” Thomas said. “Everybody said wire replacement. Now you’re seeing a 1% to 2% share of value shift away from ACH and into RTP. With high dollar transaction amounts, when people realize there’s an option not to wait one to three days to see those funds appear, they are going to move to RTP.”
Treasurers now have the ability to wait until the very last second to push funds over to a counterparty. Expect further changes in payment behavior as embedded payment solutions and agentic AI gain traction.
“Water is going to find its level as all those factors become better known and as particularly as providers push out more and more use cases effectively,” Thomas said. “That’s going to be a value-added service on the banks part to figure out where those things need to get embedded.”
The Permanence of Virtual Cards
As payment trade-offs shift, virtual cards are likely to take on a more prominent role. Purchasing cards are primarily used to manage spending for maintenance, repair, and operations. A business could use petty cash or a requisition process instead, but purchasing cards are simpler while still maintaining control.
“That spend is going to go up and down based on how well or poorly the company is doing,” Thomas said. “If you feel you’re broke at the end of the month and your car needs new tires, you’re going to push that thing off. I would liken that to how MRO tends to go down a bit in cyclical downturns. It’s exposed to economic downturns in that respect.”
The biggest exposure for most banks, however, is corporate card spend. When the economy weakens, the first thing to contract is corporate travel. A $10,000 travel budget can quickly become tightly controlled, with any expense over $300 requiring additional approval before it can be incurred. Further compression in this category is likely if the economy slows.
Declining Travel Concerns
Virtual cards are also exposed because a significant portion of their current spend flows through online travel agencies settling with providers.
“I buy something from Expedia, Expedia buys something from Hilton, and they’ll often use a virtual card to make that payment because they know they can reverse part of it or all of it, or just authorize it and then settle it later,” Thomas said. “If there’s an economic downturn, people will travel less, but there is a bit of an offset in as much as when they do travel, they’ll pay more because gas prices and plane fares are going to be higher.”
Conversely, virtual cards are increasingly being used as a working capital management tool. If a business pays a supplier with a virtual card on day 10 and pays the card bill on day 30, it gains additional days of payable float on that purchase. In a high-interest-rate environment, it may be preferable to accept a small transaction in exchange for delaying cash outflows that would otherwise occur in 60 or 90 days.
“That’s where your hedge comes in,” said Thomas. “There is some downside risk if the economy goes down, but in a high interest environment where people are looking to push out days payable outstanding and hang on to cash, that’s going to drive more spend on virtual cards.”
Taking Multiple Outlooks
The factbook was prepared using both baseline and pessimistic scenarios, following a report from the Dallas Fed that emphasized downside risks. This allows for a view of plausible paths for commercial payments under different macroeconomic environments.
These scenarios can be used not just for forecasting, but for portfolio management. A wider range of macro outcomes helps providers identify where downside impacts are likely to appear first, and use that insight to shape sales priorities, risk appetite, and customer support strategies.
“Our goal with doing this is to say, here’s the total addressable market and here’s where share shift is happening,” Thomas said. “We try and get into where pools of revenue are going to come from and expanding use cases. That’s our goal.”
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