ISO 20022 and agentic AI to drive payment unification in 2026

But financial institutions (FIs) and tech providers must integrate new real-time systems with legacy rails.

Domestic and cross-border payment systems are expected to increasingly unify in 2026, whilst ISO20022 and agentic AI will also play a role in developing payments, Finextra said.

“Most major economies will offer seamless interoperability across legacy and real-time systems – albeit at different rates and in a way that could compete with global real-time systems,” Finextra said in its payment predictions 2026 report.

But to do so, financial institutions (FIs) and tech providers must integrate new real-time systems with legacy payment rails, Finextra said.

ISO20022 represents another key catalyst for payments modernisation in 2026.

“[The] start of 2026 will be dominated by more changes and cleanups – especially across address formats, exception/handling messages, and infrastructure upgrades for high-value payment systems,” Finextra wrote.

Changes will result in better data quality and consistency, it added, as addresses will be structured, and payment messages will include richer and more standardised fields.

“The year 2026 could yield many other use cases for ISO 20022,” Finextra said.

Agentic AI’s role in corporate banking, B2B payments, and operational efficiency will come to the fore in 2026, it said.

The sector could start seeing AI agents processing high volumes of vendor invoices, reconciling accounts, and scheduling autonomous payments.

“What’s more, predictive analytics powered by agentic AI might enable banks to forecast financial events and make data-driven decisions that reduce risk and improve the customer experience,” Finextra said.