How a payments fintech uses AI to battle tariff refund chaos

• Key insights: Tipalti upgraded its artificial intelligence tools, arguing it can help businesses manage tariff complications such as applying for refunds. 
• What's at stake: The payments firm is trying to expand its relationship with clients by offering tariff-related services.
• Forward look: Tariffs and other political issues are complicating payments, putting businesses and payment companies under pressure.

President Trump's tariffs upended banking and payments, a challenge that reached another level when the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs and the administration issued tariffs under another law.     

Coupled with financial impacts from the Iran war, there's an opportunity for payment companies to lean in with technology designed to streamline billing, transaction processing and applying for potential tariff refunds. 

"The 'black swan event' that used to happen every ten years is happening every six months now," Rob Israch, president at Tipalti, told American Banker  "You always have to be ready." 

Business payments company Tipalti has upgraded its AI-powered technology, partly to sell tools that help businesses manage the fast-changing political and economic environment. 

"Everything has to be faster now," Israch said. 

Tariff turmoil

Following the Supreme Court's decision on tariffs, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a guide on tariffs paid under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, which was the subject of the court decision. "Determining whether your business qualifies — and understanding what steps to take next — can be challenging," the Chamber said in its guide, noting the application process includes nine steps to determine if the tariffs a company paid fall under the IEEPA Act and are eligible for a refund. 

About $166 billion covering 53 million shipments between April 2025 and February 2026 from 330,000 importers are eligible for refunds, according to White and Wiliams LLP, adding the filing process vets eligibility, statutory interest and other funds. 

"This impacts some industries more than others," Israch said. "Retailers, e-commerce companies, any company that relies on foreign sourcing." 

Tipalti dipped into a $200 million funding round led by Hercules Capital in the fall of 2025 to improve its AI tools. Tipalti added a set of agentic AI programs to add more context-aware, agentic capabilities designed to automate repetitive tasks.

Functions covered include a reporting AI agent that generates reports through natural language prompts that pull insights from invoices, procurement and payment data. A tax form AI agent automates supplier onboarding and W-9 compliance for faster approvals; a purchase request agent auto-generates purchase requests, integrates approval workflows and streamlines communication. Another agent supports payee onboarding experiences.

Regarding tariff eligibility, the AI tools enable businesses to quickly drill down into details that determine the types of payments and if they fall under those in the Supreme Court decision. 

"You can ask 'anything' about a payment, what the status is, or any detail from the bill," Israch said, adding a lot of that information exists in digital forms but is still accumulated manually, which can be difficult when accumulating documents for demonstrating eligibility. "There needs to be an audit trail." 

How it's difficult

Banks are also updating technology to manage tariffs and other payment complexities due to politics. Bank of America has updated its CashPro business payments software, including a redesigned payment approval and a new digital identity verification experience for corporate administrators.

This will add to other recent upgrades, including AI-driven analysis of payment trends, biometric login and in-app push alerts and approvals, that have contributed to 20% growth in the usage of CashPro, with $1.2 trillion processed in 2025. CashPro's upgrades are not a direct response to the Iran war or tariffs, but could address challenges businesses face as a result. 

The mix of legal requirements makes these types of payouts complicated, according to Gilles Ubaghs, an executive advisor at Datos Insights. 

"Given all that, payouts also often have legal requirements for when funds have to be paid, with a lot of electronic methods that mean you have to click accept, which can be surprisingly messy, and then the money just sits there in legal limbo while the payers have to chase the recipients to ensure they've received their funds," Ubaghs told American Banker.

AI and automation technology can help determine eligibility for tariff refunds by identifying relevant transactions and calculating the originally charged tariff, according to Aaron McPherson, principal at AFM Consulting, adding only the importer of record can claim a refund, and then only for imports that Customs and Border Patrol did not finalize more than 180 days ago.  

"Even so, the Administration may try to deny refunds for imports where the costs were passed on to consumers," McPherson said. "In short, this will be a complex and arduous process, and importers will need all the help they can get."

Refunds have always been part of tariff policy, but have gained more attention during the second Trump presidency. U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, has been processing routine tariff refunds for decades, but the Supreme Court's recent decision limiting the President's authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act has put this normally quiet function into the spotlight, according to Eric Grover, principal at Intrepid Ventures. 

"Historically, importers have been able to claim refunds for duties paid on goods that were later exported (unused or incorporated into other products), as well as for defective merchandise, misclassification, and other assessment errors.

"Most companies rely on customs brokers to manage this process, but the underlying data still has to come from internal ERP, procurement and logistics systems," Grover said. "To substantiate refund claims, firms must reconcile entry summaries, tariff classifications, country‑of‑origin data, and export documentation, often across multiple systems that were never designed for audit‑grade traceability. Trade‑management vendors have been warning that many companies lack the data hygiene needed to support large‑scale refund claims."

Given its role in managing cross‑border payables, Tipalti already holds much of the invoice‑level and supplier‑level data required to validate duty payments and could position itself as a workflow hub for managing this influx of refund requests, according to Grover. "The volume and complexity of these claims create an opportunity for Tipalti to trumpet its value, highlighting its automation, data integrity, and compliance capabilities," he said.