October 2026
The 2026 Certainty Project

Funding the Future: What Gives CFOs the Confidence to Grow

PYMNTS Intelligence’s Certainty Project has tracked the damage uncertainty does to businesses since 2024. Its 2026 reports took stock of that toll, then looked at where CFOs still see room to invest and how quickly that confidence can fade.

Header image for the PYMNTS Intelligence October 2026 Certainty Project Mini Report. PYMNTS Intelligence explores how business uncertainty affects CFO spending plans and what could give companies the confidence to invest.

Middle-market CFOs are keeping growth plans alive in an uncertain economy, but their confidence comes with a sensitive off switch.

That tension runs through the Certainty Project’s 2026 reports. The January report documented how unpredictable conditions hurt revenue, margins and liquidity. By August and September, the research was examining the financial tools companies need to support growth and the confidence required to approve new spending.

Read together, the reports suggest a practical dividing line: Companies with clearer visibility can pursue opportunities, while those facing greater uncertainty struggle to fund them. The progression reveals how caution reaches the budget, without establishing that CFOs as a group have become more optimistic since January.

The studies cover different survey periods and topics. January drew on nine CFO surveys conducted between February 2024 and November 2025. August and September each surveyed 60 CFOs in June and July 2026, respectively. All focused on U.S. firms with annual revenue between $100 million and $1 billion.

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    The Year Began With a Performance Divide

    In the January report, “How Business Uncertainty Is Forcing a New CFO Playbook,” 82% of CFOs at high-uncertainty firms said their companies missed their expectations for 2025. That compared with 56% at medium-uncertainty firms and 28% at low-uncertainty firms.

    The strain carried into their outlooks. Some 35% of high-uncertainty firms expected revenue to decline in 2026. Among low-uncertainty companies, 96% anticipated growth. Those are forecasts made before the year began, rather than evidence of what subsequently happened.

    The difference also showed up in financial flexibility. At high-uncertainty firms, 76% described cash flow and liquidity as weak. At low-uncertainty firms, 68% described that position as strong. Companies entered the year with very different capacities to absorb another disruption.

    Growth Put Finance Systems Under Pressure

    The August report, “Growth and Scaling: The Corporate Finance Inflection Point,” produced with Fynapse, showed that growth was still occurring. Among the executives surveyed in June, 58% said revenue had increased over the previous 24 months.

    Expansion brought its own challenges. Cash flow forecasting was difficult to manage or scale for 62% of firms, and 37% called it their single biggest finance or back-office challenge. Firms without revenue growth were 33% more likely than growing firms to find forecasting difficult (72% vs. 54%). Many were still adding products and suppliers, increasing the demands on finance.

    Their investment priorities offered a constructive response. Fifty-two percent identified cash flow forecasting as an area where investment would most help them scale. Real-time reporting, reducing manual processes and unifying finance data followed. Better financial visibility offered a way to manage complexity while preparing for further growth.

    Confidence Reached the Capital Budget

    September’s “The Cost of Caution: Why CFOs Put Growth Plans on Hold” showed how closely spending tracked confidence. Among firms whose certainty improved over the prior 12 months, 59% increased capital expenditures, and 5.0% reduced them. Where certainty declined, only 13% increased spending, and half cut it.

    The overall picture still contained room for expansion. Forty-eight percent described their investment stance as expansionary, and 47% planned to increase capital spending over the next 12 months.

    But the threshold for retreat was lower than the threshold for growth. More than half needed somewhat or very high certainty before expanding. By contrast, 92% said a moderate or smaller decline in certainty could push them into a defensive stance. Confidence acts like a thermostat with different settings for turning investment on and shutting it off.

    The response was fast: 57% adjusted capital spending within three months of a confidence shift. And the cuts were selective. Fifty-eight percent would cut or postpone growth capital expenditures, compared with 7.0% who would trim maintenance capital spending.

    The series therefore offers a useful lesson for banks, payments providers and finance technology firms serving the middle market. CFOs need reliable information about cash, demand and financing to decide which growth plans they can support. Helping them improve that visibility can give investment a firmer foundation, even when the broader economy remains difficult to predict.

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    Methodology

    “Funding the Future: What Gives CFOs the Confidence to Grow” features data from the September 2026, August 2026 and January 2026 editions of the PYMNTS Intelligence Certainty Project. Data from the September edition is based on a survey of 60 CFOs conducted July 9-17, 2026; the August edition data is based on a survey of 60 CFOs conducted from June 9-16, 2026; and the January edition data is based on nine surveys of CFOs at U.S.-based middle-market firms conducted from Feb. 12, 2024, to Nov. 26, 2025.

    About

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    PYMNTS Intelligence is a leading global data and analytics platform that uses proprietary data and methods to provide actionable insights on what’s now and what’s next in payments, commerce and the digital economy. Its team of data scientists includes leading economists, econometricians, survey experts, financial analysts and marketing scientists with deep experience in the application of data to the issues that define the future of the digital transformation of the global economy. This multilingual team has conducted original data collection and analysis in more than three dozen global markets for some of the world’s leading publicly traded and privately held firms.

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