Новости за 06.05.2024

Renters are less confident that they will ever own a home than they have been since the Federal Reserve Bank of New York began asking them about this prospect. The share of renters who expect to own a home dropped to 40.1% in the New York Fed’s 2024 SCE Housing Survey, which is 4.3 percentage points lower than […]

We may be witnessing the beginnings of a great pullback in consumer spending. At least in some areas. As paycheck-to-paycheck living remains a reality for most U.S. consumers, the strategies are multipronged: trading down, trading off, or choosing where to allocate what seem to be increasingly limited resources. Headed into 2024, PYMNTS found some shifts already in place. […]

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the way companies approach data-driven customer marketing.  The benefits of AI in marketing are substantial, experts say. AI-powered systems offer the potential to unearth insights from customer databases, automate crucial campaign management tasks, and engage with buyers in more natural ways.  “A digital marketing transformation is underway, and AI is driving […]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has filed a complaint against the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts and Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA), alleging that they ignored student loan borrowers seeking payment relief. If entered by the court, the CFPB’s proposed stipulated final judgments would require the National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts and the PHEAA to pay $400,000 and $1.75 […]

As Amazon gains share in hobby retail categories, specialty retailers such as Sam Ash are taking a hit. The music retailer announced Thursday (May 2) that it is closing all its stores. “It is with a heavy heart that we announce that effective May 2nd 2024, all Sam Ash Music Store locations will begin store closing sales,” the company stated. “…Thank you for […]

India’s central bank wants its digital currency to be available without internet access. “One of the key features of cash is that it works offline,” Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das said at a Monday (May 6) Bank for International Settlements summit. “We are working on making the CBDC transferable in the offline mode also.” A Bloomberg News report […]

You’ve probably heard it before, but data is undoubtedly the oil of the 21st century. And, just like oil, any data breaches or the equivalent “spills” of consumer information can be damaging to both businesses and their ecosystems. Particularly given the fact that we are now in the zettabyte era, with more consumer-generated data being […]

Microsoft is reportedly working on a new, in-house artificial intelligence (AI) model that is “far larger” than the other open source models it has trained. The new model, MAI-1, is expected to have about 500 billion parameters, Seeking Alpha reported Monday (May 6), citing a paywalled article by The Information. It aims to compete with models created by Google, OpenAI (in which Microsoft is an investor), Anthropic […]

Bundesbank’s president said central banks must speed the adoption of digital currency to remain viable. “If you would have asked me 20 years ago if the central bank business model” were “destroyable or not, I would have said no,” Joachim Nagel said on Monday at a Bank for International Settlements Innovation Summit.  “Now I am not so […]

Embedded lending tools enable potential borrowers to apply for credit directly from the merchant or provider’s platform — often while paying for a product or a service. For instance, while finalizing a purchase, a shopper can be prompted to apply for a new credit card or pay via buy now, pay later (BNPL) installments. If […]

Robinhood’s cryptocurrency business could become the target of regulatory action. The trading platform said Monday (May 6) that it received a Wells Notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) staff indicating they will recommend that the commission take enforcement action against the company. “After years of good faith attempts to work with the SEC for regulatory clarity including […]

The PNC Financial Services Group and the TCW Group have formalized and expanded their partnership to develop a private credit platform focused on middle market lending. The companies aim to have $2.5 billion in investor equity capital available in the platform’s first year, and expect investment activity to begin in the fall, they said in a Monday […]

Large language models, or LLMs, have emerged as pivotal forces in artificial intelligence.  These models, constructed on extensive datasets of human-generated text, empower machines to comprehend, produce and interact with human language. Their advent has sparked a wave of innovation across various sectors, from technology to healthcare to finance, while triggering discussions about their societal implications. […]

Phone, keys, wallet. That’s the daily routine that tens of millions  if not billions — of people undergo each morning when checking their pockets or purses before they leave their homes to start the day.  And with the recent news that telecommunications giant Vodafone is planning to integrate cryptocurrency wallets and blockchain-based payment solutions directly into mobile phone […]

Accenture and Oracle expanded their partnership to help clients accelerate their adoption of generative artificial intelligence in the finance organization. The new solutions offered through this collaboration aim to help chief financial officers reinvent financial planning and analysis, optimize operations and fuel growth, the companies said in a Monday (May 6) press release. “Our clients are laser-focused on moving beyond […]

China’s Ant Group is reportedly looking to expand use of its payments product Alipay+. “What we found is that people want to use their home e-wallets when they travel abroad. So they don’t want to have to load their card into another app that they don’t know as well,” Douglas Feagin, senior vice president of Ant Group, said in a […]

As commerce and entertainment become increasingly intertwined, high-intent consumers are still turning to brands’ and retailers’ websites to get their shoppable content. While commerce-integrated content such as shoppable livestreams have been catching on in China, consumers in the United States still prefer a more traditional online shopping experience, Vincent Yang, co-founder and CEO of video commerce platform Firework, told PYMNTS in […]

Despite news about rising inflation and stalled interest rates, recent PYMNTS Intelligence data confirms that many of the small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) that dot Main Street USA are demonstrating real resiliency. According to the latest edition of our SMB Growth Monitor Report, “Main Street Small Business Growth Exceeds GDP for First Time in Two […]

The rise of open banking and FinTechs is changing the fabric of financial services. Data sharing and pacts between traditional financial institutions and digital-only innovators promise to bring innovation to the masses, especially when consumer-permissioned data, held by community banks and larger enterprises, is shared with third parties. The scope of third-party relationships is expanding. Consumers may have relationships […]

The Swiss National Bank (SNB) is conducting a pilot project that has used wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) and successfully settled four tokenized bond issuances and one secondary market transaction. Project Helvetia III, which was launched in December, is testing tokenized central bank money for wholesale use and allows participating banks to use Swiss franc wholesale CBDC to […]

Shoppers might soon spot Target’s private-label brands at stores other than Target. Christina Hennington, the company’s chief growth officer, tells Bloomberg News that it is expanding sales of its in-house Cat & Jack children’s brand at department-store chain Hudson’s Bay Co. in Canada after getting positive feedback. According to the report, the deal is the first time Target has […]

J.P. Morgan and Visa have teamed to offer faster domestic payments via Visa Direct. The collaboration, announced Monday (May 6) is designed to improve merchant experiences and empower cardholders for customers of J.P. Morgan Payments. “With Visa Direct’s extensive reach in the U.S., J.P. Morgan Payments will empower merchants, businesses and FinTechs to embed faster domestic payments into their solutions,” […]

Bakkt is cutting staff after warning earlier this year about the future of the company. The cryptocurrency platform said in a securities filing Friday (May 3) that it is laying off 28 workers, or 13% of its non-call center staff. “The reduction in force is a component of a broader strategic review of the company’s […]

The amount of data now being generated by consumers is testing the constraints of the dictionary. Only 10 years ago it was measured in terabytes, which is a trillion bytes. But now those 329 million terabytes of data are generated every day, and data scientists have applied a relatively new term: The Zettabyte Era. It’s the last metric standing as data continues to explode […]

A new global business identity platform is on the scene, enabling banks, FinTechs and enterprises to verify and onboard businesses of all sizes, particularly smaller businesses. Four years and hundreds of millions of data points in the making, Markaaz has a unique, two-sided business model and some serious executive credentials behind it as it shoots […]