Making payments part of the workflow: Embedded finance in 2026

For large organizations, managing money is all about the complexity of global operations, sprawling teams, and multiple software systems. All this creates a tension: how do you keep everything coordinated, accurate, and actionable? Even when companies know what they want to achieve, the tools they use often move more slowly than the business itself.

Embedded finance has now become the backbone to bring this coordination together.

In conversation with Eva Reda, Executive VP and GM of Global Commercial Services Products at American Express, we unpack how embedded finance is influencing commercial payments today and what its next phase could look like in 2026.

Where embedded finance really moves the needle today

The most transformative innovations often come from solutions built directly into the systems businesses already use, notes Reda.

“Because of their complex, global operations, large organizations need their software systems – from travel booking to expense management to cards – to be operating as one,” she says.

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