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Payabli named to 2026 Forbes Fintech 50, powering embedded payments, reshaping vertical SaaS

Thursday, March 05, 2026 — 19:43:42 (UTC)

Payabli Named to the 2026 Forbes Fintech 50, Powering the Embedded Payments Infrastructure Reshaping Vertical SaaS and Modern Enterprise

Payabli has been named to the 2026 Forbes Fintech 50 — one of the most prestigious recognitions in the financial technology industry.

MIAMI, March 5, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ --Payabli, an embedded payments infrastructure company purpose-built for vertical software platforms, today announced it has been named to the 2026 Forbes Fintech 50 — one of the most prestigious recognitions in the financial technology industry. This marks Payabli's first year earning a spot on the list.

Each year, Forbes evaluates hundreds of private fintech companies across the United States to identify the 50 most innovative and high-impact players shaping the future of finance. Now in its eleventh year, the list is curated by a dedicated team of Forbes reporters and editors who assess companies across a rigorous set of criteria — including product originality, revenue growth, leadership team diversity, and overall market impact. To be eligible, companies must be privately held with headquarters or substantial operations in the U.S.

"Being named to the Forbes Fintech 50 is a profound honor, and it belongs to every team member who has poured their heart into building Payabli and every Software partner who has entrusted us with supporting their Payments business," said Joseph Elias Phillips, Co-Founder and Co-CEO.

Advancing the Future of Embedded FinTech

Payabli's platform is built around three core capabilities: Pay In, Pay Out, and Pay Ops. Together, they give vertical software companies everything they need to embed and monetize financial services directly inside their products. Over the past year, Payabli made significant R&D investments to deepen all three pillars.

On the Pay In side, Payabli expanded its acceptance suite to include Soft POS, Remote Deposit Mobile Check Capture (RDC), and IVR payments. The company is also preparing to release Embedded Lockbox and a new generation of Card Present hardware devices, giving platforms more ways to capture payments across every channel their customers use.

Pay Out received equal investment. Building a comprehensive embedded payables suite, Payabli's infrastructure is designed to streamline the vendor payment process end to end. That suite includes Ghost Cards (multi-use virtual cards issued to a vendor for recurring payables), an embedded payout component, vendor payout links, and AI agents that pay vendors autonomously through portals and phone calls. On the Pay Ops side, Payabli's AI-enabled risk and compliance tools have become a deciding factor for enterprise customers who want direct control over their payment operations. An enhanced boarding experience, launching soon, extends that advantage further.

AI is reshaping how platforms monetize payments, and Payabli is built for this moment. The company is executing a two-part Agentic Fintech strategy. First, Payabli's MCP server gives software partners a direct on-ramp to embed Payabli's capabilities into their own agentic workflows, with no heavy integration lift. Second, Payabli is building a library of pre-built AI agents that partners deploy instantly, by calling an API endpoint or dropping in an embedded component. Payabli recently launched Amigo, its first production agent, which accelerates partner onboarding and surfaces payment insights through conversation. Together, these two layers position Payabli as the AI-native operating system where intelligence and infrastructure converge, helping platforms monetize financial services at scale.

"We're not just adding AI features, we're building an AI-native operating system where intelligence and infrastructure work together. From support agents to fraud detection to autonomous reconciliation, AI is how platforms will monetize payments at scale. This Forbes recognition validates our speed, but AI is what will define our next chapter," said William Corbera, Co-Founder and Co-CEO.

Strong Growth Across Platform, Customers, and Team

The Forbes recognition comes on the heels of significant company momentum. Payabli has achieved 4x year-over-year growth and today powers more than 100 vertical SaaS platforms across a broad range of need-to-pay industries — including HOA and property management, field services, healthcare, education, legal, insurance and more. The company's expansion across high-transaction, compliance-sensitive verticals reflects the growing demand for payments infrastructure that is purpose-built for the specific operational needs of software platforms and their end customers.

Payabli's team growth has kept pace with its market traction. The company added 50 new employees in 2025 and continues to scale its headcount heading into 2026. That growth includes key executive hires at the leadership level, with Brian McKinney joining as Chief Technology Officer and Steven Madow joining as Head of Product in early 2026. McKinney brings extensive fintech engineering leadership experience from Modern Treasury and Square, while Madow brings deep payments product expertise from NMI and Stax — both joining to accelerate Payabli's product and technology roadmap.

"Being named to the Forbes Fintech 50 is a profound honor, and it belongs to every team member who has poured their heart into building Payabli and every Software partner who has entrusted us with supporting their Payments business. This recognition reflects years of relentless work, but more importantly, it signals what's coming. In 2025 we strengthened our team, hardened our infrastructure, and matured as an organization. The embedded fintech opportunity is still in its first inning, and we intend to define it in 2026 and beyond," said Joseph Elias Phillips, Co-Founder and Co-CEO.

A Signal for the Market

The Forbes Fintech 50 recognition follows Payabli's recent partnership announcement with Huntington Bank, underscoring that the embedded payments opportunity extends well beyond vertical SaaS. As embedded fintech becomes foundational infrastructure for modern enterprises at large, Payabli is positioned at the center of that market shift.

"Being named to the Forbes Fintech 50 is more than an award — it is an industry signal. It reflects not only where Payabli has been, but the momentum behind where the company is going," Corbera and Phillips added.

About Payabli

Payabli is a unified payments and fintech infrastructure platform that enables software companies, financial institutions and enterprises to embed payments and financial services directly into their digital products. Its API-first architecture simplifies the launch and scaling of financial offerings with modular integrations, compliance tools, and full payments lifecycle management—spanning Pay In, Pay Out, and Pay Ops to power every stage of money movement.

For more information, visit www.payabli.com

Media Contact:

Camille Phillips, 949-742-1389,camille@payabli.com

Marielle Mekkaoui, 508-361-3836, marielle@payabli.com

Media Contact

Marielle Mekkaoui, Payabli, 1 508-361-3836, marielle@payabli.com, www.payabli.com

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Source: Company press release.

Categories: Announcement