Новости за 29.07.2024

With the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) winding down its commentary period for potential buy now, pay later regulations, Affirm Friday (July 26) submitted a detailed response advocating for adjustments that it says will better accommodate the unique aspects of BNPL products. The CFPB’s proposed Interpretive Rule under the Truth in Lending Act (TILA) and […]

Payments processing startup Lemon Squeezy has been acquired by Stripe. Lemon Squeezy announced the acquisition on its blog last week, saying the deal marks a culmination of a relationship that began when the company was founded in 2021. “Along the way, we received many acquisition offers and (Series A) term sheets from investors,” the blog […]

In a move that’s sending ripples through the tech and business worlds, Meta Platforms has unveiled its most advanced AI models yet, challenging industry leaders OpenAI and Google. The release of Meta’s Llama 3 family of models, mostly available for free, marks a significant escalation in the AI arms race and could redefine how businesses […]

Amid a worldwide data breach surge, France is dealing with an older-school type of cyberattack. As Bloomberg News reported Monday (July 29), vandals have cut several fiber optic cables carrying broadband service across the country, now four days into hosting the Olympic Games. According to the report, connections serving Paris — where the actual games […]

Pinterest is reportedly seeking help from news outlets and other publishers in selling ads. The social media platform is testing a new program to sell ads on Pinterest pages using an ad auction system, according to a report Monday (July 29) by Seeking Alpha, which itself cited a paywalled story by The Information. From there, […]

Imagine a world where machines make life-altering decisions about your health, your job prospects and even your freedom. That world isn’t science fiction — it’s already here. As artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes our lives, a new frontier is emerging: AI ethics. This rapidly evolving field tackles a crucial question: How do we ensure that intelligent […]

Gift card scams are back in the news, with two federal agencies issuing warnings about their proliferation and one state now passing a law aimed at stopping its latest iteration called card draining, where scammers deplete the value of gift cards before they are used. First, the good news. Maryland has enacted the Gift Card […]

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) firm Galileo has released a new ranking of top large language models (LLMs). The company on Monday (July 29) announced its latest “Hallucination Index,” which ranks the performance of AI LLMs from the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta. “This year’s Index added 11 models to the framework, representing the […]

Scottish FinTech Aveni has raised $14 million to bring AI to the financial services field. The company announced its Series A on Monday (July 29), saying it would use the funding to build on its efforts to create artificial intelligence (AI) products and large language models (LLMs) specifically for the financial services industry. “The financial […]

The price of bitcoin hit a six-week high Monday (July 29). The alleged reason? Separate comments made over the weekend by presidential candidates Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Nashville’s Bitcoin Conference that observers believe could signal, if not herald, greater legitimization of the cryptocurrency sector. Kennedy, an independent candidate, called for launching a […]

McDonald’s sales fell for the first time since 2020 as lower-income consumers stayed home. The fast food giant released quarterly earnings Monday (July 29) showing a 1% dip in sales, with management saying the company is feeling the same pressures as much of the quick-service restaurant (QSR) market. “Beginning last year, we warned of a more discriminating consumer, […]

OpenAI’s new “SearchGPT” tool, launched Thursday (July 25), aims to shake up the eCommerce industry online with AI-powered product discovery and comparison. The prototype, available to a limited test group, promises more concise and relevant results than conventional search engines. Unlike Google’s pages of links, SearchGPT offers summarized answers with source links, potentially revolutionizing how consumers […]

Today’s CFOs increasingly find themselves in a position to actively transform their companies. This emerging reality is rapidly transforming the nature of both the CFO role and the finance function. Once seen primarily as a steward of financial stewardship, the modern CFO is now a strategic partner in driving growth and innovation within their organizations.  […]

Apple Inc. has announced that its upcoming artificial intelligence (AI) features will be delayed and will not be included in the initial launch of the new iPhone and iPad software updates. The AI features, known as Apple Intelligence, are now expected to be rolled out to customers in October, a few weeks after the release […]

Consumer spending has remained strong despite elevated inflation, surprising many economists. However, there are concerns about credit card delinquencies and lenders’ net charge-offs, which could indicate whether consumers can keep up with their payments. The Philadelphia Fed reported that credit card delinquencies in Q1 2024 reached their highest level since 2012. According to Seeking Alpha, […]

Small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs) are the beating heart of the economy, but four years into the pandemic’s digital transformation, many are still fighting to gain a clean bill of financial health. Outdated manual accounting processes and paper payments continue to waste precious time as cash flow falters and inflation erodes margins. Smaller banks and […]

Digital innovation, no matter the sector, relies on scalable, secure and interoperable technological infrastructure. Within healthcare, where innovation is often spoken about but rarely fully realized at scale, those needs are crucial to transforming — and standardizing — the way care and research are delivered and experienced. “There is so much disparity between one geography […]

While open banking starts to gain traction in the U.S., across the pond the banking and payments sector is celebrating milestones. Last week it celebrated ten million active users. Is that a good number? Consider two facts before you answer. One: Ten million users is 15% of the entire U.K. population. If 15% of the […]

True seismic shifts in payments occur over the course of years — not months. But, as Jim McCarthy, CEO of Thredd, told Karen Webster, the halfway point of 2024 offers a chance to take stock of where we’re headed with instant payments and tokenization and where — if experiences elsewhere around the globe are any […]

Excitement over artificial intelligence (AI) helped drive Coursera shares (and results) significantly higher this past week, while earnings began to trickle in for the CE 100 Index — and the deluge of quarterly reports begins in earnest.     Coursera shares leaped 49%, leading the Work segment 2.7% higher. The earnings results showed the company […]

Married couples without children are leading the way in travel spending, data show, and as others pull back their purchasing in the category, these dual-income-no-kids consumers continue to shell out.  “The Last Transaction: Family Spending Habits Reveal Merchant Opportunities in Retail and Travel,” a PYMNTS Intelligence report, leverages data from a survey of over 2,700 […]

DoorDash has reportedly hired an ex-Amazon executive to help its continued expansion beyond restaurant deliveries. Parisa Sadrzadeh, who has also worked as Flexport’s vice president for small and midsize business and omnichannel fulfillment, will be DoorDash’s new vice president of strategy and operations, The Information reported Friday (July 26), citing a company spokesperson. The report […]

The automotive industry is facing an obstacle in switching to electric vehicles: traditional cars. As The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Sunday (July 28), pressures on car company profits only add to the challenge of embracing electric vehicles (EVs), with several major automakers recently releasing earnings that missed market expectations. Among the issues: warranty expenses, […]

WeRide, a Chinese autonomous driving startup, is planning to go public in the U.S. The company filed for an initial public offering (IPO) with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday (July 26). WeRide said in that filing that it could face “various legal and operational risks and uncertainties” tied to the People’s Republic […]

Dubai-based financial services firm Mamo has raised $4.3 million in new funding. Founded in 2019, the company offers services such as payment collection, corporate cards and expense management for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). “Mamo’s mission is to empower people to manage and grow their money through simpler, faster […]