ValidiFI Named 2026 Finovate Award Winner for Best Corporate Payments Solution
ValidiFI, Inc., a provider of alternative data and predictive analytics for financial services and payment organizations, has announced that it has been named the 2026 Finovate Award winner for Best Corporate Payments Solution. The recognition highlights ValidiFI’s work in developing technology designed to help businesses make more informed payment decisions, improve transaction confidence and identify potential fraud and payment risks before money moves.
The annual Finovate Awards recognize financial institutions and fintech companies that are advancing innovation across the financial services industry. The Best Corporate Payments Solution category focuses on organizations developing technologies that improve the way businesses manage and execute payments.
ValidiFI’s winning solution is its Bank Account and Payment Intelligence Platform, which brings together multiple sources of account and payment intelligence to provide organizations with a broader understanding of payment risk. The platform evaluates factors including account validity, account ownership, behavioral patterns, payment performance, account tenure, transaction velocity and fraud indicators.
By combining these signals, ValidiFI aims to give organizations a more complete view of the account and the individual or business connected to it before a payment is initiated.
Addressing Increasing Complexity in Corporate Payments
Corporate payment ecosystems have become increasingly complex as organizations manage large volumes of transactions across multiple channels and payment methods.
Businesses may need to process ACH transactions, vendor payments, customer payments, account-to-account transfers and disbursements while simultaneously managing fraud exposure and operational costs.
A payment that fails after it has already been initiated can create additional administrative work and potentially damage customer or vendor relationships. Fraudulent transactions can have an even greater impact, creating financial losses and requiring organizations to invest additional resources in investigation and recovery.
These challenges have increased the importance of validating payment information before transactions are submitted.
ValidiFI’s platform is designed around this concept by providing organizations with predictive insights before money moves. Rather than relying only on basic account information, the platform considers a broader collection of signals associated with the account and its payment behavior.
This approach is intended to help organizations make more confident decisions at earlier stages of the payment process.
Combining Account, Consumer and Payment Intelligence
A central component of ValidiFI’s technology is its ability to connect information about the bank account with information about the consumer and the financial behaviors associated with that account.
Traditional account validation can establish whether an account exists or whether certain information appears valid. However, payment risk can involve factors that extend beyond basic account verification.
An account may be valid but still present elevated payment risk. A payment may also fail for reasons related to account activity, transaction patterns or other behavioral signals.
ValidiFI’s platform is designed to provide additional context by examining account tenure, payment performance, transaction velocity and fraud indicators.
This broader perspective can help businesses distinguish between different types of payment risk and make decisions based on more than a single validation signal.
Improving Payment Confidence Before Transactions
The timing of risk assessment is particularly important in payment processing.
Once a transaction has been submitted, organizations may have fewer opportunities to prevent a failed payment or fraudulent transaction. Identifying potential problems earlier can provide businesses with an opportunity to take action before the payment is completed.
ValidiFI’s platform is intended to support this pre-transaction decision-making process.
Organizations can use account and payment intelligence to assess whether an account appears valid, whether ownership information can be authenticated and whether behavioral indicators suggest potential payment risk.
The objective is to improve payment confidence while reducing avoidable failures and strengthening fraud controls.
Reducing Failed Payments
Failed payments can create significant operational challenges for businesses.
When a payment cannot be completed, an organization may need to determine the reason for the failure, contact the customer or vendor, initiate another payment attempt and reconcile the resulting transactions.
For businesses processing high volumes of payments, even relatively small failure rates can translate into substantial administrative costs.
ValidiFI’s predictive intelligence is designed to help organizations identify accounts and payment scenarios that may present elevated failure risk before transactions are initiated.
By using account-level and behavioral information to inform payment decisions, businesses can potentially reduce unsuccessful transactions and improve overall payment performance.
This can be particularly valuable for organizations that process recurring or high-volume payments where small improvements in transaction success rates can have a meaningful operational impact.
Strengthening Fraud Detection
Fraud remains a major concern across the payments ecosystem.
Businesses must balance the need to prevent fraudulent transactions with the need to provide legitimate customers and vendors with a smooth payment experience. Excessively restrictive fraud controls can create friction for legitimate users, while insufficient controls can expose organizations to financial losses.
ValidiFI’s platform adds behavioral and predictive signals to the fraud assessment process.
Information related to transaction velocity, payment behavior, account history and other fraud indicators can provide additional context when organizations evaluate a payment.
Rather than looking at an account in isolation, businesses can consider broader patterns that may indicate unusual activity or increased risk.
This can support more informed fraud detection strategies while helping organizations avoid relying exclusively on basic account information.
Supporting Account Validation
Account validation is another key use case for ValidiFI’s platform.
Before initiating a payment, businesses may need to determine whether an account is valid and whether the person or organization providing the account information is authorized to use it.
This can be particularly important during customer onboarding, payment setup and account changes.
ValidiFI’s Bank Account and Payment Intelligence Platform is designed to support account validation and ownership authentication as part of the payment workflow.
The additional intelligence can help organizations establish greater confidence in account information before initiating transactions.
Vendor Payment Applications
Corporate payments frequently involve transactions between businesses.
Vendor payments can involve large amounts of money and recurring payment relationships, making accurate account information particularly important.
Organizations may need to verify vendor banking details before adding a new supplier to their payment system or changing existing payment instructions.
ValidiFI’s platform can provide account and payment intelligence that businesses can use as part of these workflows.
By assessing account validity, ownership and other risk signals before payment initiation, organizations can strengthen controls around vendor payment processes.
This can help businesses reduce the risk of sending payments to incorrect or fraudulent accounts while improving operational efficiency.
Supporting ACH Payments and Disbursements
ACH remains an important payment method for businesses across the United States.
Organizations use ACH transactions for payroll-related processes, vendor payments, customer payments, refunds, account funding and other financial activities.
Because ACH transactions can involve significant volumes, improving payment accuracy and reducing failed transactions can have a direct impact on operational efficiency.
ValidiFI’s technology supports ACH payment use cases by providing predictive account and payment intelligence before transactions occur.
The platform can also support disbursement workflows, helping organizations evaluate account information before funds are distributed.
For companies making large numbers of payments, pre-transaction intelligence can help create a more consistent approach to payment risk management.
Supporting Customer Onboarding
Payment intelligence can also play a role before a customer becomes fully active within a financial product or service.
During onboarding, organizations may need to verify bank account information, authenticate account ownership and evaluate potential risks.
This process can be particularly important for fintech companies, financial institutions and other businesses that connect customers to payment-enabled services.
ValidiFI’s platform can provide intelligence that organizations can incorporate into onboarding workflows.
By evaluating account information and behavioral indicators at an early stage, businesses can potentially identify issues before the customer reaches later stages of the payment lifecycle.
A Predictive Approach to Payment Risk
ValidiFI describes its platform as being powered by one of the industry’s largest bank account and payment intelligence networks.
The network provides the underlying data used to generate predictive insights for organizations.
The company’s approach reflects a broader movement across financial services toward using alternative data and analytics to improve decision-making.
Instead of evaluating transactions using only traditional information, predictive models can incorporate additional signals that provide context around account activity and payment behavior.
For organizations, this can create opportunities to identify risks that might otherwise remain hidden until after a transaction fails or fraudulent activity is detected.
John Gordon Highlights the Importance of Pre-Transaction Decisions
John Gordon, CEO of ValidiFI, said organizations are facing increasing pressure to make accurate decisions as consumer expectations accelerate and payment ecosystems become more complex.
According to Gordon, businesses have less time to assess risk while simultaneously being expected to provide faster and more reliable payment experiences.
The Finovate recognition highlights ValidiFI’s effort to address this challenge by giving organizations greater visibility into the account, consumer and behaviors associated with payments.
Gordon emphasized that the platform is designed to uncover signals that may otherwise remain difficult to identify.
These insights can help businesses reduce payment failures, strengthen fraud detection and improve operational efficiency.
Supporting a More Efficient Payment Workflow
Payment operations often involve multiple steps, from collecting account information and validating ownership to initiating a transaction, monitoring payment performance and managing exceptions.
Technology that can provide intelligence earlier in the process can help organizations reduce the amount of manual intervention required later.
ValidiFI’s platform is designed to integrate intelligence into several stages of the payment lifecycle.
Account validation can support onboarding. Ownership authentication can help establish confidence in payment details. Behavioral intelligence can provide additional risk context. Payment performance information can help organizations understand whether an account is likely to support successful transactions.
Together, these capabilities can contribute to a more streamlined payment workflow.
Balancing Fraud Prevention With Customer Experience
Payment fraud controls must also account for customer experience.
Businesses want to prevent suspicious transactions, but legitimate customers should not face unnecessary barriers when making payments.
A more detailed view of account and behavioral signals can help organizations make more nuanced decisions.
Instead of treating every transaction according to the same risk rules, businesses can potentially use predictive intelligence to identify different levels of risk and determine the appropriate response.
This approach can support stronger fraud prevention while maintaining a smoother experience for legitimate customers.
Recognition From the Finovate Awards
The 2026 Finovate Award provides industry recognition for ValidiFI’s approach to corporate payments.
The Finovate Awards focus on financial institutions and fintech companies that are developing innovative solutions across financial services. The Best Corporate Payments Solution award specifically recognizes advancements in the way businesses move money and manage payment processes.
For ValidiFI, the recognition underscores the importance of combining payment intelligence, alternative data and predictive analytics to address challenges facing modern businesses.
It also highlights the growing role of technology in helping organizations make payment decisions before transactions occur.
Expanding the Role of Data in Financial Services
The ValidiFI platform reflects the expanding role of data-driven decision-making throughout financial services.
Banks, fintech companies, payment providers and businesses increasingly rely on data to evaluate risk, improve customer experiences and increase operational efficiency.
In the payments sector, access to timely and relevant information can be particularly valuable because transactions often need to be processed quickly.
Predictive analytics can provide organizations with additional information without necessarily slowing down the payment process.
ValidiFI’s approach brings together account information, payment behavior and fraud-related indicators to create a more comprehensive intelligence layer for payment workflows.
Building Greater Confidence Across Corporate Payments
Corporate payment operations require organizations to balance speed, accuracy, security and efficiency.
Businesses need payments to reach the correct recipients, accounts to be valid and authorized, and transactions to be completed successfully. At the same time, they need to identify fraudulent or suspicious activity before it creates financial or operational consequences.
ValidiFI’s Bank Account and Payment Intelligence Platform is designed to address these requirements through a combination of account validation, ownership authentication and predictive payment intelligence.
Its applications extend across onboarding, ACH payments, disbursements and vendor payments, providing organizations with tools to evaluate payment risk before transactions occur.
The 2026 Finovate Award for Best Corporate Payments Solution recognizes this approach and places ValidiFI among the fintech companies being recognized for advancing corporate payment technology.
As payment ecosystems continue to evolve, organizations are likely to place greater emphasis on predictive intelligence that can help them make decisions earlier in the transaction lifecycle. By connecting account information with behavioral and payment signals, ValidiFI aims to give businesses a clearer understanding of risk and performance before money moves.
The company’s latest recognition highlights the growing importance of this capability and reinforces the role that alternative data and predictive analytics can play in building more reliable, secure and efficient corporate payment operations.
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