The pressures on corporate treasury and financial institutions have never been more acute. Regulatory mandates, from the global push for ISO 20022 migration to the G20’s drive for faster cross-border payments, have converged with a market-wide expectation for instant, data-rich transactions. This perfect storm is quickly dividing the financial ecosystem: those embracing rapid modernization are building future-proof competitive advantage, while those clinging to legacy systems risk becoming obsolete.
In an exclusive discussion, Vitus Rotzer, Chief Product Officer (CPO) for Financial Messaging at Bottomline, detailed the three crucial strategic shifts that treasury and finance leaders must prioritize to secure their position in 2026.
The single most critical factor now separating high-performing institutions from the pack is the speed and strategic depth of payments modernization. Too many firms remain shackled by expensive, fragmented legacy systems that cannot handle the new requirements of instant settlement and richer data messaging.
Rotzer is definitive on where the battle for leadership will be won:
“What is really separating leaders from laggards is their ability to rapidly adopt a cloud-native SaaS platform for payment and messaging and how quickly they modernize, especially around ISO 20022 and real-time payments.”
This is more than a technology choice; it’s a commitment to a new operating model. While industry data suggests over 40% of institutions are held back by their current infrastructure, those that pivot to cloud-native SaaS with an API-first integration strategy are gaining a definitive edge. They are positioned to win on three core metrics critical to the end-user: speed, transparency, and the richer data ISO 20022 enables.
Real-Time is Now Table Stakes
What was once a competitive differentiator Real-Time Payments (RTP) and ISO 20022 messaging has rapidly become a fundamental requirement. With Swift traffic quickly migrating to the richer ISO format, the core domestic payment capabilities will soon be standardized.
The true challenge now shifts to extending that real-time capability to the “last mile” of cross-border transactions. While the G20’s goal is to accelerate global access, achieving sub-one-hour cross-border settlement requires a new level of global consensus and technological portability. For treasury professionals, this means an expectation of faster, more predictable transactions is now a corporate norm.
Closing the Cash Visibility Gap
Perhaps the most surprising finding in the current operating environment relates directly to core treasury functions. Despite decades of digitization efforts, a significant portion of institutions (industry data suggests 45%) still lack a complete and real-time view of their cash position, with an alarming number still relying on manual spreadsheets for reconciliation.
This gap presents a major commercial opportunity for banks to serve their corporate clients better. The solution lies in leveraging the very infrastructure being built for payments. Real-time payment and ISO 20022 data are perfectly positioned to feed dynamic, real-time cash management solutions.
The strategic response includes:
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API-First Integration: Using APIs to integrate disparate internal and external systems to automate reconciliation and achieve Straight-Through Processing (STP).
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AI-Driven Forecasting: Embedding tools that use historical payment sequences and counterparty behaviour to provide AI-driven forecasting, helping treasury move from reactive reporting to proactive liquidity management.
From Compliance-Driven to Experience-Driven: The Role of AI
The operational headwind financial institutions face is arguably the rising complexity of cybersecurity and fraud. The rapid scaling of instant payments has created new vectors for attack, straining operational resilience and demanding a shift in defense strategy.
For CPOs, the immediate strategic recommendation is not complex, but urgent. Rotzer champions a focus on resilience:
“The best recommendation for me will be… to prioritize a SaaS modernization that embed operational resilience into every product roadmap as quickly as possible. This is foundational for speed, scalability and trust.”
AI is quickly becoming mission-critical in this defense. It is the necessary engine for real-time anomaly detection, predictive rescoring, and automated sanction screening, which can process masses of information faster than manual compliance teams.
Furthermore, defeating sophisticated fraud which is increasingly multi-bank and multi-institution—requires an end to siloed defense. The industry must move towards consortiums where banks collaborate to share data on fraudulent endpoints and activity, leveraging shared AI to block threats collectively.
Investment and Ecosystem Pivots
Looking ahead, Rotzer predicts a clear shift in where capital will be deployed: “The spending will start to pivot from legacy IT maintenance into platform modernization, API ecosystems and AI driven compliance tools.”
This shift is crucial for dealing with the competitive threat posed by FinTechs and Big Tech. These players excel at leveraging APIs and embedded finance to deliver specialized, friction-free services. Instead of viewing them purely as rivals, financial institutions must embrace partnership. By opening services via modern APIs and creating a robust ecosystem, banks can integrate these innovative capabilities into a holistic 360-degree offering, ensuring they remain central to the core payment chain.
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