Новости за 03.09.2024

Thailand’s digital wallet stimulus plan has suddenly become less digital. As Reuters reported Tuesday (Sept. 3), Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra said the government’s planned 450 billion baht ($13.1 billion) “digital wallet” handout will be distributed in cash, a change from the government’s flagship policy. Initially, the government would have transferred 10,000 baht ($292) in credit […]

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI launched its Colossus 100k H100 training cluster over the weekend. “Colossus is the most powerful AI training system in the world,” Musk said in a post on social platform X. “Moreover, it will double in size to 200k (50k H200s) in a few months.” This weekend, the @xAI team […]

Outside of the B2B space, the payment experience has long been recognized as a crucial component of customer satisfaction. Fast, secure, and flexible payment options are standard expectations — and businesses that fail to offer them to their customers often fail to compete. In contrast, B2B payments have lagged, with transactions between buyers and suppliers […]

Shopping/financial services app Tabby is acquiring Saudi digital wallet Tweeq. The deal, announced Tuesday (Sept. 3), will let Tweeq continue to operate independently, while allowing Tabby to consider expanding its financial products suite to include features like digital spending accounts, cards and money management tools. “The agreement is a significant step towards realizing the goals […]

Rite Aid has announced a leadership transition as it emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Jeffrey S. Stein has stepped down as CEO and chief restructuring officer, while the company’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, Matt Schroeder, has been appointed CEO, the company said in a Tuesday (Sept. 3) press release. Rite Aid announced […]

Open banking platform Tarabut has acquired British account-to-account (A2A) business payments platform Vyne. The deal, announced Tuesday (Sept. 3), is designed to strengthen Tarabut’s ability to offer faster and more accessible and interconnected financial services in the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region and around the world. According to a news release, the acquisition — which officially closed Aug. 1 — […]

Ziina has raised $22 million to provide FinTech services for UAE-based small businesses. In an interview with TechCrunch Tuesday (Sept. 3), Co-founder and CEO Faisal Toukan said there were a few factors that made the company attractive to investors, including the rapidly-growing small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) segment in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the company’s newly-acquired central bank […]

As bitcoin ATMs have been installed in more locations, they have become a “payment portal for scammers,” the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said in a Tuesday (Sept. 3) data spotlight. The amount of money consumers lost to scams involving bitcoin ATM machines increased tenfold between 2020 and 2023, rising from $12 million to $114 million, according to the […]

For Brian Morgan, owner of Couch Potatoes Furniture & Mattress Stores, standing out in a crowd is the company’s collective mission. On Saturday (Aug. 31), Couch Potatoes & Mattress Stores unveiled a pioneering retail and manufacturing concept in Austin, Texas. The company opened a 100,000-square-foot flagship store that marked the debut of the first U.S. […]

Zil Money’s OnlineCheckWriter.com now allows businesses to send checks funded by their credit card or wallet. The addition of this capability is part of an upgrade of its check mailing services, the company said in a Monday (Sept. 3) press release. With this service, OnlineCheckWriter.com allows users to send checks online; choose from delivery options […]

Technology and third-party relationships — with service providers and digitally-focused FinTechs — have helped transform banks’ operations. Banks have been able to pivot fully into the digital age, serving a broader swath of customers than they otherwise might have if those partnerships had not been struck in the first place. The PYMNTS Intelligence report “The […]

Seamless cross-border B2B payments remain one of the white whales of the connected economy. And with the news Friday (Aug. 30) that Bridge has raised an additional $40 million round to continue building its stablecoin-based global payment scheme, executing international transactions quickly and conveniently is increasingly top of mind for companies looking to capture market share […]

Australian lender Elepay has introduced its latest pay-later solution for property owners. The Brisbane-based company’s 180-day offering, announced in a news release Tuesday (Sept. 3), is designed to allow property owners to capitalize on their property’s value before selling without having to worry about upfront expenses. “The 180-day Pay Later Solution is a natural extension of Elepay’s objective to […]

Global money movement company TerraPay appointed Visa veteran Ralph Koker as global head of products. In his new role, Koker will refine TerraPay’s product strategy, spearhead its go-to-market initiatives, and help the company scale its service offerings and strengthen its client relationships on a global scale, the company said in a Tuesday (Sept. 3) press […]

Credit union service organization (CUSO) Velera will provide debit card processing support to HawaiiUSA Federal Credit Union, which delivers services to more than 132,000 members. This marks an expanded partnership of the two organizations, as the CUSO already provides credit card processing support to the Honolulu-headquartered credit union, Velera said in a Tuesday (Sept. 3) […]

Ad-subsidized payments network Zilch recorded its first profitable month in July. In the same month, Zilch’s revenue run rate exceeded $130 million, according to a Tuesday (Sept. 3) press release. “The speed at which Zilch has achieved profitability places it in the same bracket as European FinTech giants such as Revolut, Starling Bank and Monzo,” […]

Airbnb says New York City’s short-term rental law hasn’t done its job. “In the wake of stringent measures, consumers are instead facing all-time high hotel prices and residents facing all-time high rents,” the company wrote on its blog Tuesday (Sep. 3) as it called on the city to scale back the regulation. The company argues that Local Law […]

Travel spending will generate a record 10% of gross domestic product (GDP) this year. That’s according to a report Monday (Sept. 3) by Reuters, citing data from World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), a non-profit membership group. The WTTC estimates show the travel industry contributing $11.1 trillion to the worldwide GDP for 2024, up 12.1% […]

Summer should get a speeding ticket, a wise person once said, and that’s a reality that all of us living in the Northern Hemisphere came to grips with last weekend. The Labor Day weekend marked the unofficial end of summer, and the start of the four-month sprint to the end of the year. Along with […]

Embedded lending is growing in popularity around the world. It offers convenient, streamlined access to financing for specific expenses from within merchant, business and other platforms. This proves especially impactful for individuals and microbusinesses and small businesses (MSBs) that want to better align cash flow and expenses. In Australia, 13% of consumers and 11% of […]

Digitization over the past decade-plus has transformed the back office with next-generation software solutions. But it’s not just the back office; innovations like digital wallets have been transforming the proverbial back pocket, too. The impact digital wallets are having as mobile technology advances and consumer preferences shift is becoming impossible to ignore — particularly outside […]

In the wrong hands, digital footprints can turn into a blueprint for fraud. Particularly as identity theft proliferates and becomes more sophisticated, data breaches are increasingly turning personal and business information into a goldmine for cybercriminals looking for their next payday. “We are at about four times the level of data that has been breached […]

In the wake of the savings events rush of the summer, with seemingly every large merchant announcing some major discounting push, consumers are growing accustomed to shifting their spending toward predictable sales moments. Key retailers including Best Buy and Target have been noting this trend throughout this year. “Given the significant headwinds they faced with […]

As generative artificial intelligence begins to make its way into more parts of consumers’ daily lives, many are skeptical of the technology. By the Numbers The PYMNTS Intelligence study “Generation Zillennial: Voice Assistants and GenAI” drew from a survey of more than 2,700 United States consumers in June, seeking to understand generational trends in preferences […]

Lloyds Bank has launched a collaboration with artificial intelligence (AI) platform Cleareye.ai. The partnership, announced Tuesday (Sept. 3) and said to be the first of its kind in the U.K., will use AI to streamline processing and compliance checking for trade finance documentation. The effort will use Cleareye.ai’s ClearTrade technology and is set to be […]