The payments trade not often stands nonetheless. New applied sciences are altering how transactions are initiated and processed, companies are rethinking how they settle for and handle payments, and monetary establishments are discovering new methods to compete and collaborate. But innovation issues most when it solves an actual world drawback, improves an expertise, or modifications what the trade can ship.
Tearsheet’s Power of Payments (TPOP) Awards 2026 rejoice the businesses, merchandise, and folks placing that progress into observe. Meet this yr’s winners.
2026 Winners of the Power of Payments Awards
1. Payment Technology Provider of the Year: TabaPay
TabaPay earns the Payment Technology Provider of the Year Award for creating wealth motion easier by way of a single integration masking payments, payouts, and danger. Its infrastructure powers corporations like Klarna, SoFi, Dave, ADP, and Current, and is on monitor to course of greater than $100 billion in 2026. TabaPay delivers authorization charges as excessive as 98% for sure account-funding transactions, fraud charges roughly half trade benchmarks, and value reductions of as much as 75%. A Current pilot with Visa elevated card attachment charges by 153% and decreased chargebacks by 57%. With greater than 50% year-over-year development and eight consecutive years of profitability, TabaPay has constructed cost infrastructure that mixes scale, efficiency, and adaptability.
2. Best Card Product: Intuit
Intuit wins the Best Card Product Award for turning a enterprise bank card into half of the monetary administration system small companies already use. The Intuit Business Credit Card lives natively inside QuickBooks, connecting on a regular basis spending with money move, credit score, and monetary well being fairly than working as a standalone cost instrument. Receipts are robotically matched to transactions, eliminating handbook effort, whereas real-time spending controls, limitless bodily and digital playing cards, and individualized limits give rising groups extra visibility. By connecting spending information on to QuickBooks and utilizing enterprise efficiency information to tell credit score choices, Intuit has made the cardboard half of a broader monetary workflow fairly than one other disconnected enterprise expense instrument.
3. Best Payroll Offering: Clair
Clair receives the Best Payroll Offering Award for making earned-wage entry a sensible office profit with out including value or complexity for employers. Embedded in platforms like Gusto, QuickBooks, and TriNet, its on-demand pay service lets workers entry earned wages in as quick as 2.5 minutes, free by default. The providing offers employees larger monetary flexibility whereas serving to payroll suppliers deepen engagement. Clair stories 85% month-over-month repeat utilization, 89% consumer satisfaction, and employer opt-out charges as little as 0.1%. Its proprietary Clair Atlas engine makes use of payroll, attendance, and scheduling information to evaluate employees’ earnings extra precisely. With roughly 500,000 month-to-month energetic customers throughout 300,000 companies and a $100 million annualized income run price as of August 2026, Clair is displaying how embedded payroll advantages can ship worth throughout the workforce ecosystem.
4. Most Innovative Payments: Nium
Nium takes house the Most Innovative Payments Award for connecting stablecoin funding to real-world enterprise payments by way of a single enterprise platform. Its infrastructure brings collectively USDC funding, cross-border settlement, forex conversion, native payouts, and card issuance throughout Visa and Mastercard, lowering the necessity for separate suppliers and integrations. Businesses can use stablecoin balances to fund industrial payments and ship native forex throughout greater than 190 nations and 100 currencies. Partnerships with Coinbase and Circle lengthen these capabilities, whereas a Visa-led pilot explores regulated stablecoin settlement seven days every week. By connecting on-chain property to established cost networks and native rails, Nium is making stablecoins extra sensible for enterprise payments.
5. Best BNPL Provider: Splitit
Splitit receives the Best BNPL Provider Award for making installments out there by way of consumers’ present bank cards, with no new mortgage or laborious credit score verify. Its card-linked platform integrates into service provider checkouts, letting prospects break up payments whereas retaining their card rewards and buy protections. With approval charges above 85%, Splitit helps retailers supply versatile payments with out installment default danger or surrendering their checkout to a third-party lender. Merchant outcomes embody an 18% common improve in conversion and 25-49% greater common order values on installment transactions. The infrastructure additionally extends to banks. Splitit’s embedded installments platform makes use of present card rails, enabling issuers to supply installments straight on their bank cards by way of a service provider community spanning e-commerce, in-store, and digital commerce. Building on its present credit score relationships, Splitit helps issuers compete in Buy Now, Pay Later with infrastructure confirmed at scale.
6. Best Cross-border Payments Offering (B2C or B2B): Payoneer
Payoneer earns the Best Cross-Border Payments Offering Award for serving to companies handle worldwide payments with out the complexity of conventional banking. Its platform lets entrepreneurs obtain funds in one forex, pay suppliers or contractors in one other, and withdraw in a 3rd, with native receiving accounts and versatile payout choices. Serving prospects in greater than 190 nations and territories, Payoneer combines multi-currency payments with native assortment capabilities and regulatory experience to assist companies attain new markets. Its instruments additionally simplify cost monitoring and reconciliation. Payoneer can be investing in stablecoin capabilities and dealing towards providing stablecoin pockets performance to prospects, extending its cross-border infrastructure towards always-on digital payments. By bringing cross-border collections, forex administration, and payouts into one platform, Payoneer simplifies the monetary operations behind worldwide development.
