Corporate treasury teams are operating in an environment shaped by economic uncertainty, rapid digital transformation, and rising expectations for accuracy and foresight in decision-making. In this context, reliable data is no longer a reference tool—it is a strategic imperative. CTMfile continues to support the treasury and payments community by delivering timely insights grounded in credible research, industry dialogue, and real-world practitioner perspectives.

Treasury leaders and their teams increasingly depend on data to challenge assumptions, allocate resources, and strengthen risk management frameworks. Recognizing this reliance, this article consolidates the most consequential data-driven insights influencing corporate treasury and payments strategy today—insights that reflect how organizations are responding to cash forecasting complexity, payments modernization, fraud exposure, regulatory change, emerging technologies, short-term investing, skills applied across treasury, and financial risk.

In this article, we highlight ten essential payments and treasury insights drawn from select 2025 survey reports and trusted industry sources. While these data points originate from last year’s research, their relevance extends into 2026, offering treasury executives a fact-based lens to evaluate current practices and prepare for the road ahead.

1. Cash management and forecasting remain top treasury priorities

Despite growing business complexity and perceptions that forecasting accuracy has become harder to achieve, cash management and forecasting continue to top the treasury agenda. The Association for Financial Professionals® (AFP) 2025 Treasury Benchmarking Survey Report (sponsored by Wells Fargo) indicates that 73% of practitioners identify cash management and forecasting—including scenario analysis—as their leading priority, up from 68% in 2022.

2. AI adoption accelerates to improve cash forecasting accuracy

As forecasting accuracy remains a persistent challenge, treasury practitioners are increasingly turning to advanced technology for support. The AI in Treasury & Finance Survey Report from Strategic Treasurer shows that a majority of respondents favour applying artificial intelligence (AI) to address cash forecasting and reconciliation challenges.

Expectations around AI’s role have strengthened across nearly all categories. For instance, the proportion of professionals who expect AI to improve cash forecasting increased from 65% in 2024 to 76% in 2025. Similarly, confidence in AI’s ability to reduce manual reconciliation workloads rose from 55% to 62% over the same period. ⃰ 

3. The Rule of 40 set to reshape the payments landscape

According to ACI’s report Payments in transition: Leadership in an era of transformation, “In 2026, growth and margin will matter more than hype. The Rule of 40—revenue growth plus pretax margin above 40%—is returning as the ultimate valuation filter. Those who miss the mark will face consolidation.”

The report highlights a widening disconnect between ambition and execution. While 69% of payments executives claim leadership, fewer than half invest meaningfully in innovation. Legacy infrastructure and internal inertia continue to slow progress, leaving organizations vulnerable as investors increasingly prioritize measurable performance. In this environment, leadership will be defined by execution—clear roadmaps, cloud-ready infrastructure, real-time capabilities, and talent strategies that translate vision into sustained results.

4. Most organizations plan to update their payments strategy

The 2025 AFP® Digital Payment Survey Report (underwritten by J.P. Morgan) emphasises that “Updating an organization’s payments strategy is a strategic move organizations can make to align financial operations with evolving technologies, shifting customer expectations and broader business goals. As payment options change and the use of artificial intelligence and data analytics expands, an updated payments strategy allows organizations to respond more effectively to digital innovations and customer expectations.”

Reflecting this mindset, 76% of survey participants expect their organizations to update their payments strategy within the next three years. The most commonly cited focus areas include:

• Exploring new payment formats and channels enabled by advanced technology (72%)
• Updating or migrating payment file formats (40%)
• Establishing a comprehensive strategy for baseline payment type usage and requirements (38%)    

5. Regulation acts as both a barrier and a driver for payments innovation

Regulatory mandates remain a significant challenge for the payments industry. According to ACI’s payments survey, 63% of respondents identify regulatory requirements as a major barrier to innovation, citing regulatory complexity and fragmented standards that force companies to incur high compliance costs, diverting resources away from growth initiatives.

At the same time, 61% of participants view regulation as a defining driver of industry progress. Mandates such as ISO 20022, open banking, and real-time payment schemes are raising expectations around interoperability, speed, and transparency—effectively increasing the baseline that all market participants must meet.

For emerging leaders, the opportunity lies in reframing compliance as a catalyst rather than an obstacle. As ACI notes, regulation can serve as “a motivation for innovation” for organizations that leverage standards to build trust and adapt more effectively to market change.

6. Business email compromise (BEC) poised to be the greatest payments fraud risk

BEC is emerging as the leading payments fraud threat facing corporates and banks heading into 2026. According to SecureTreasury™ (securetreasury.com), the cloud-based payments security training programme for treasury teams, BEC involves malicious actors exploiting legitimate business email accounts to initiate unauthorized fund transfers.

This risk is reinforced by AFP’s 2025 Payments Fraud and Control Survey Report (sponsored by Truist), which shows that 63% of respondents report their organization has been targeted by BEC fraud. From the banking perspective, Strategic Treasurer’s 2025 Treasury Fraud & Controls (TF&C) Survey Report (underwritten by Bottomline) echoes this concern, with 67% of banks ranking BEC among their top three fraud risks over the next two years.

7. Agentic AI adoption gains traction within treasury teams

Agentic AI is moving beyond theory and into practical deployment. The AI in Treasury & Finance Survey Report reveals that 22% of companies are already using agentic AI, while 18% report adoption specifically within treasury or finance functions—exceeding earlier estimates of 15%.

The survey illustrates a clear knowledge-to-use continuum for agentic AI within organizations:

• Awareness: 72% of respondents know what agentic AI is.
• Experimentation: 32% have experimented with agentic AI; 56% have not, and 12% remain unsure.
• Company-level testing: 33% are testing agentic AI in one or more areas.
• Departmental testing: 25% are testing agentic AI within treasury and finance departments.

These trends point to a strong pipeline for future adoption, particularly as treasury teams explore agentic AI to enhance forecasting accuracy, optimize working capital, streamline payments, refine hedging strategies, and augment operational efficiency.

8. Safety remains the primary objective in corporate short-term investing

Capital preservation continues to outweigh liquidity and yield in short-term investment decisions. The 2025 AFP® Liquidity Survey (sponsored by Invesco) shows that 61% of treasury and finance professionals prioritize a “safety-first” approach to short-term investing.

Consistent with this preference, bank products such as certificates of deposit, demand deposits, time deposits, and sweep accounts remain the most commonly used short-term instruments, cited by 46% of respondents. Government money market funds followed at 20%, reinforcing the emphasis on stability and immediate access to funds.

9. Bank relationship management (BRM) ranks as the most critical treasury skill

While critical and strategic thinking remain foundational—used extensively by 57% of treasury practitioners, as per the AFP 2025 Treasury Benchmarking Survey Report—bank relationship management stands out as the most widely applied treasury skill.

AFP data shows that 93% of respondents apply BRM skills to a significant or moderate extent, making it the most important capability supporting organizational objectives. As the primary liaison with banking partners, treasury teams negotiate credit terms, manage accounts, oversee service delivery, and coordinate support during periods of stress, expansion, or operational change. Strong bank relationships continue to underpin liquidity access, risk mitigation, and global operational resilience.

10. Foreign exchange (FX) risk identified as the most critical financial exposure

Heightened economic volatility has intensified treasury’s focus on financial risk. PwC’s 2025 Global Treasury Survey confirms that foreign exchange risk is viewed as the most significant financial exposure by 83% of respondents, followed by interest rate risk (72%) and commodity price risk (39%).

These findings reflect the growing complexity treasury teams face as they manage exposures across multiple geographies, currencies, tariff regimes, and shifting monetary policies.

The ten insights presented in this article underscore the extent to which corporate treasury teams rely on accurate, actionable data to address challenges ranging from cash forecasting and payments modernization to fraud prevention, emerging technologies, bank relationship management, and financial risk. Taken together, they highlight treasury’s expanding strategic role—one that extends beyond execution to strengthening organizational resilience, protecting liquidity, and enabling informed, sustainable growth.

As uncertainty and transformation continue to define the operating environment, treasury’s advantage will lie not in access to data alone, but in the ability to interpret signals early and convert insight into decisive action. Data-driven judgment will remain central to how treasury leaders prioritize investment, manage risk, and support enterprise-wide decision-making in 2026 and beyond. CTMfile will continue to track and analyse the trends that matter most, equipping treasury and payments professionals with the insight needed to stay ahead.

 

⃰ Disclosure: Strategic Treasurer owns CTMfile.