Power of Payments Awards 2026: Six Companies Shaping Payments Infrastructure

The 2026 Power of Payments Awards point to a practical shift in payments: companies are connecting transactions to the workflows around them. This year’s six winners cover payment infrastructure, business spending, payroll, stablecoins, installments and international commerce. The common thread is integration—making payment capabilities work inside systems businesses and consumers already use.

Tearsheet’s awards recognize the companies, products and people putting that approach into practice. The winners’ reported results offer a snapshot of where providers are finding traction, from faster access to earned wages to card-linked installments.

Infrastructure built for scale and flexibility

Payment Technology Provider of the Year: TabaPay

TabaPay’s award recognizes a payments platform that combines payments, payouts and risk capabilities through one integration. The company’s infrastructure supports Klarna, SoFi, Dave, ADP and Current, and TabaPay says it expects to process more than $100 billion in 2026.

Performance figures supplied by the company include authorization rates of up to 98% for certain account-funding transactions, fraud rates about half of industry benchmarks and cost reductions of up to 75%. In a pilot with Current and Visa, card attachment rates rose 153% while chargebacks fell 57%. TabaPay also reports year-over-year growth above 50% and eight consecutive years of profitability. The figures frame the company’s pitch: consolidate payment functions while maintaining scale and transaction performance.

Most Innovative Payments: Nium

Nium is connecting stablecoin funding to business payments through a platform that brings together USDC funding, cross-border settlement, currency conversion, local payouts and card issuance on Visa and Mastercard. The company says businesses can use stablecoin balances for commercial payments and send local currency to more than 190 countries in 100 currencies.

Partnerships with Coinbase and Circle support the offering, while a Visa-led pilot is exploring stablecoin settlement seven days a week. The market test is whether businesses can use on-chain funds within familiar payment networks and local payout systems without coordinating separate providers.

Payments embedded in business and payroll workflows

Best Card Product: Intuit

Intuit’s Business Credit Card is built into QuickBooks, linking business spending with cash flow and financial records. Automatic receipt matching cuts manual reconciliation, while real-time spending controls, unlimited physical and virtual cards, and individual limits give businesses ways to manage employee purchases.

The product’s differentiator is its place in the existing accounting workflow. Spending data flows into QuickBooks, and business performance data informs credit decisions. That connection makes the card part of how a small business tracks finances, rather than a separate payment account to reconcile later.

Best Payroll Offering: Clair

Clair offers earned-wage access through platforms including Gusto, QuickBooks and TriNet. Employees can access wages they have already earned in as little as 2.5 minutes, with the service free by default. For payroll providers, embedding the benefit can deepen engagement without requiring employers to add a separate system.

Clair reports 85% month-over-month repeat usage, 89% user satisfaction and employer opt-out rates as low as 0.1%. Its Clair Atlas engine uses payroll, attendance and scheduling data to estimate earnings. As of August 2026, the company reported about 500,000 monthly active users across 300,000 businesses and a $100 million annualized revenue run rate. Those figures suggest the model’s reach is expanding across both employers and workers.

More choice at checkout and across borders

Best BNPL Provider: Splitit

Splitit lets shoppers divide purchases across their existing credit cards, without opening a new loan or undergoing a hard credit check. Its checkout integrations let customers keep their card rewards and purchase protections, while merchants offer installments through existing card relationships.

Splitit reports approval rates above 85%, an average conversion increase of 18% for merchants and average order values 25% to 49% higher on installment transactions. Its platform also gives banks a way to offer installments directly on their credit cards. With merchant access spanning e-commerce, physical stores and digital commerce, the company is positioning card-linked installments as an option for issuers as well as retailers.

Best Cross-border Payments Offering: Payoneer

Payoneer brings international collections, currency management and payouts into one platform. Businesses can receive funds in one currency, pay suppliers or contractors in another and withdraw in a third. Local receiving accounts and flexible payout options support customers in more than 190 countries and territories, while tracking and reconciliation tools help manage the resulting flows.

The company is also working toward stablecoin wallet functionality for customers. That effort would extend its cross-border services toward always-on digital payments. For businesses operating across markets, the operational question is how well one platform can coordinate collections, conversions and payouts as payment methods evolve.

The awards highlight a sector focused on fitting payment capabilities into existing business systems and established networks. The winners’ reported adoption and performance figures make clear where providers see demand; the next measure will be how those services perform as their customer bases and transaction volumes grow.

The post What progress in payments looks like: The Power of Payments Awards 2026 appeared first on Tearsheet.