5 NRF assumptions retail leaders should pressure-test in 2026

Last week at NRF Retail’s Big Show in New York, one theme came through clearly: From AI-driven personalization to agentic commerce and autonomous decision-making, the industry is clearly aligned on where retail wants to go next.

The ambition is there, and the technology largely is, too. What received less airtime is how those decisions actually get executed: through payments, settlement, and financial systems that move money behind every customer interaction.

Beneath the surface, NRF revealed a quieter tension that retail leaders should be pressure-testing now, not later.

Do our financial systems actually support the future we’re designing?

While AI can increasingly decide what should happen, payments and financial infrastructure still determine whether it can happen – reliably, globally, and at scale.

“Retail leaders are thinking bigger and moving faster,” says Laurent Hesnard, Enterprise Sales Director at Airwallex. “What we’re seeing is that the systems behind payments and finance haven’t always evolved at the same pace. And that gap shows up quickly as teams scale.”

Here are five assumptions NRF surfaced (and why each deserves a closer look as retailers plan for 2026).

Assumption 1: “If the front end is fast, the business is fast.”

Many NRF conversations focused on customer-facing speed: instant checkout, real-time personalized offers that can be acted on immediately, and seamless omnichannel journeys.

But speed doesn’t stop at the UI. Or at least, it shouldn’t.

Behind every transaction are authorization flows, settlement timelines, FX conversion, reconciliation, and payouts. When those systems are slow or fragmented, the impact shows up quickly – in tied-up cash, missed SLAs, and finance teams back in spreadsheets. For retail teams, those breakdowns don’t just affect finance. They ripple into inventory planning, vendor payments, and the ability to act quickly on demand shifts.

Retailers pushing into new markets or channels often discover that their payments stack wasn’t designed for real-time execution at a global scale. The result: ambition outpaces infrastructure.

Pressure test: Where does speed break down after checkout?

Assumption 2: “Payments coverage equals payments capability.”

At NRF, global expansion was treated as table stakes. But many retailers equate “global” with a country count – assuming their provider can support new markets simply because it’s on a list.

In practice, though, “coverage” often hides real operational trade-offs that show up once retailers are live in-market:

• Some providers support cards, but not local payment methods (leaving retailers to either leave conversion on the table or tack on additional providers – driving up cost and operational complexity)

• Others authorize transactions but settle funds slowly or inconsistently

• Like-for-like settlement – collecting and settling in the same currency – across regions isn’t guaranteed (often forcing FX conversions that increase total payment costs and erode margins)

As retailers expand, these gaps compound – especially when customer expectations differ market to market.

Retailers increasingly want to offer local payment methods wherever they sell, without managing dozens of separate integrations or provider relationships. Fewer systems don’t just reduce complexity; they make it easier to scale globally with consistent reporting, settlement, and control. Platforms like Airwallex are designed around this principle, helping retailers support local payment rails across markets through a single integration.

Pressure test: Can your payments setup truly support local preferences and global consistency?

Assumption 3: “More providers mean more flexibility.”

Over time, many retailers accumulate payment providers organically – one for cards, another for wallets, another for FX, payouts, or specific checkout flows in certain regions or channels. This often happens for good reasons: acquisitions, regional expansion, or the need to move quickly into new markets.

It feels flexible early on. But as time passes, it just creates more points of failure.

“Most scaling retailers don’t want more payment tools,” says Jaime Kingston, Senior Account Executive, Enterprise, at Airwallex. “They want fewer systems that actually work together.”

When you have multiple payment providers, it can create issues like:

• Fragmented reporting and limited visibility, making it difficult to see true cash position, forecast accurately, or close the books without manual intervention

• Inconsistent settlement timing that complicates cash planning across regions

• Higher operational overhead for finance and engineering teams, along with increased risk of costly errors during reconciliation, refunds, or cross-border transfers

At NRF, the push toward automation and AI highlighted a contradiction: autonomous workflows don’t work well across disconnected systems.

Retailers are starting to reassess whether flexibility actually comes from more vendors – or from fewer, more capable integrations underneath.

Pressure test: How many systems does it take to answer a simple question about cash position or real-time performance?

Assumption 4: “AI decisions are the hard part.”

NRF showed us that AI is rapidly becoming embedded in retail decision-making across pricing, inventory, and customer engagement.

But faster decisions only matter if the underlying systems can execute without introducing new bottlenecks.

Execution still depends on:

• Whether payments can be routed intelligently

• Whether funds can move quickly across entities and regions

• Whether finance teams have visibility and control in real time

As retail becomes more agent-driven, finance systems must shift from reactive to programmatic – supporting autonomous workflows instead of slowing them down. Otherwise, agentic commerce risks hitting the same operational constraints, just at a higher velocity.

Pressure test: If AI triggers a decision instantly, can your finance stack execute just as fast?

Assumption 5: “Payments are a solved problem.”

Payments often enter the conversation late, treated as plumbing rather than strategy.

NRF 2026 suggested that looking at payments as an afterthought is no longer sustainable.

As retailers operate across online and in-store environments, manage payouts and issuing, and support complex global structures, payments and finance infrastructure quietly shape everything from customer experience to margin resilience.

This is especially true for retailers blending physical and digital commerce – where unified systems for payments, payouts, and cash management become essential, not optional.

Pressure test: Are payments part of strategic planning, or an afterthought once growth is already underway?

What NRF 2026 really signals

NRF 2026 didn’t just showcase what’s next for retail.

It revealed a growing gap between aspiration and execution: where AI, automation, and omnichannel experiences are moving faster than the financial systems meant to support them.

For retail leaders heading into 2026, the opportunity isn’t just to adopt new tools, but to modernize the infrastructure underneath so those tools can actually deliver.

Because in the next phase of retail, the brands that win won’t just make better decisions; rather, they’ll be the ones whose systems can act on them.

For retailers rethinking how payments and finance fit into their growth strategy, modern financial infrastructure is becoming a critical enabler of what comes next. Talk to our team to see how Airwallex can help you scale globally with fewer systems, not more.

Sources

1.  https://nrfbigshow.nrf.com/

2. https://www.airwallex.com/us/blog/cross-border-payments-checklist

3. https://www.airwallex.com/us/blog/ai-in-finance

4. https://www.airwallex.com/us/blog/how-smarter-financial-tools-correlate-with-global-scale