Bloks unveiled a native integration with Wealthbox, enabling financial advisors to sync AI-generated meeting notes and enriched client data directly into the CRM they already trust—all while maintaining the highest standards for security and compliance. Bloks connects to leading CRMs such as Salesforce, Affinity, HubSpot (beta), and now Wealthbox—plus your email, calendar, every major meeting platform, and curated internet sources to deliver the most comprehensive client intelligence available today. Even better, it takes under two minutes to set up and runs quietly alongside the tools advisors already use. What the Integration Delivers: Structured sync in a click – Send Bloks’ meeting summaries, tasks, and relationship profiles straight into Wealthbox notes and contact records. 360° data gathering – Pulls context from conversations, emails, documents, calendars, and the web to create deep, always-fresh profiles. Ask Bloks — your Relationship GPT – Prep for meetings, surface hidden opportunities, or run quick analyses with natural-language prompts. Two-minute setup, 5–8 hours saved weekly – Early adopters reclaim nearly a full business day—without changing workflows.
Societe Generale’s dollar-backed stablecoin launch points to the global landscape for issuance beyond the US, underpinned by worldwide demand for U.S. dollars and expanding use cases in FX, cross-border payments and cash management
Societe Generale-FORGE (SG-FORGE) is to launch a new stablecoin, the USD CoinVertible, on both the Ethereum and Solana public blockchains (ticker code: USDCV). The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, will act as reserve custodian, enabling seamless integration between traditional and digital financial ecosystems. The USD CoinVertible is the second stablecoin issued by SG-FORGE after the EUR CoinVertible (ticker code: EURCV) launched in April 2023, allowing investors to benefit from a robust access to stablecoin markets and a seamless trading experience on two major currencies. SG-FORGE will propose to its clients instant 24/7 conversion between fiat currencies and stablecoin, enabling immediate, around-the-clock transactions in both USD and EUR. USD CoinVertible and EUR CoinVertible are designed to support a wide range of client activities, including crypto trading and cross-border payments, on-chain settlement, foreign exchange transactions, and collateral and cash management. The stablecoins will be listed on various crypto exchanges and available to institutional, corporate and retail investors through different crypto brokers and payment service providers, with liquidity provided by several reputable market makers. Trading of USDCV is expected to start early July. Both USD CoinVertible and EUR CoinVertible are Electronic-Money Tokens (EMT) fully compliant with the European Markets in Crypto-assets (MiCA) regulation.
Core to delivering next-gen personalized, compliant payment experiences worldwide is building planet-scale architectures that operate globally, comply locally and serve personally, J.P. Morgan Payments led convention concludes
As a part of Tech Week NYC and in collaboration with Tech:NYC, J.P. Morgan Payments convened industry leaders and members of the media to discuss the latest trends in fintech and technology in New York and beyond. The event, which played to a standing-room-only crowd, also featured a dynamic panel discussion featuring Julie Samuels, President and CEO of Tech:NYC, Nicole Casperson, founder & CEO of Fintech Is Femme, and Dennis Owusu-Sem, COO of This Week in Fintech. Moderated by CNBC reporter Hugh Son, the conversation explored fintech media trends and the evolving narrative around New York City’s growing technology ecosystem. Looking ahead, Shivananda highlighted four trends that he believes will define the future of payments.
- Planet-scale architectures: These systems are designed to deploy globally, comply locally and serve personally. Shivananda acknowledged that this is not an easy problem to solve, particularly given the regulatory complexities across jurisdictions. But he believes solving for this scale is foundational to delivering personalized, compliant experiences worldwide. Digital ledger transformation: Digital ledgers have “an opportunity to reshape payments completely.” While consumer experiences have become more seamless, often ambient and invisible, the core infrastructure has stayed largely unchanged for decades. “That’s beginning to shift,” he said, as the foundation becomes more “scaled, flexible, agile, nimble [and] innovation-friendly.” With digital payments evolving, cryptographic security has become even more central. Shivananda described this as part of the foundation that enables trust and safety at scale: “Delivering security the way our customers expect it, in fact, probably better than our customers expect it sometimes, is now table stakes.”
- Artificial intelligence: J.P. Morgan Payments is applying AI across both internal systems and emerging client-facing solutions. Shivananda described a two-by-two framework — assist vs. act, internal vs. external — and noted that while much of the current focus is on internal use cases like risk management, “with the right focus on guardrails… you can take it out to the customer.” He emphasized the importance of innovation, trust, ethics, and regulatory alignment as AI capabilities evolve and are introduced to clients as commercialized use cases.
Overhauled Shortcuts app in iOS 26 supports Apple Intelligence models for actions like summarizing PDFs, generating recipes, answering questions, and more
Apple overhauled the Shortcuts app in iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS Tahoe, and there are now Apple Intelligence options that users can take advantage of. The app supports Apple Intelligence models for things like summarizing PDFs, generating recipes, answering questions, and more. Here’s what Apple offers, along with the descriptions: Morning Summary – Use Model to describe the day ahead of you. Action Items From Meeting Notes – Use Model to grab action items from meeting notes. Summarize PDF – Use Model to summarize the open PDF in Safari. Is Severance Season 3 Out? – Use Model to find out if something has been released. ASCII Art – Use Model to draw you some ASCII art. Document Review – Use Mode to help you compare and contrast documents. Reminders Roulette – Use Model to punt an unimportant reminder to tomorrow. Get Started With Language Models – A tutorial for Use Model with examples. As the last pre-made Shortcut suggests, you can create your own shortcuts that incorporate Apple’s AI model, and Apple’s offerings serve as examples. When you go to create a Shortcut, there’s a new Apple Intelligence section. You can opt to use an on-device model, a cloud model that takes advantage of Private Cloud Compute, or ChatGPT. There are some pre-determined options, so you can do things like open Visual Intelligence or generate an image with Image Playground. There are several Writing Tools features for adjusting the tone of text, proofreading, creating a list from text, summarizing text, or rewriting text. When you tap on Cloud, On-Device Model, or ChatGPT, there’s an open-ended prompt where you can write in what you want to do. You need to work within the confines of the model that Apple provides, pairing it with other functionality in Shortcuts. You can pull in data from the Weather app, your Calendar, and Reminders, then ask the model to prepare a summary, for example. AI models can be incorporated into any Shortcut.
Talkdesk introduces a new ”operating system for customer experience”—built on multi-agent AI orchestration and Data Cloud, that unifies structured and unstructured data across every customer interaction, channel, and system of record
Talkdesk upended the customer experience (CX) market with the launch of Customer Experience Automation (CXA)—a new software category and platform purpose-built to automate the full complexity of modern customer journeys. The Talkdesk CXA platform introduces a new operating system for customer experience—built on multi-agent AI orchestration and fueled by the Talkdesk Data Cloud, which unifies structured and unstructured data across every customer interaction, channel, and system of record. By turning transcripts, call recordings, messages, and case notes (combined with customer data points from multiple CRMs and specialized systems) into actionable knowledge, the Data Cloud gives AI agents the context they need to solve real business problems intelligently, autonomously, and at scale. Talkdesk CXA deploys a network of specialized AI agents—each with a clear role, shared context, and the ability to collaborate in real time. This makes it possible to automate complex, cross-functional processes that span the front and back offices with precision, speed, and adaptability. Talkdesk CXA is also built for speed. With preconfigured use cases, low- and no-code tooling, and both industry-specialized and general-purpose AI agents, organizations can go live fast and start seeing value quickly. A unique differentiator of the platform is the AI Gateway that enables Talkdesk CXA to sit on top of any third-party contact center, whether on-premises or cloud-based. This allows businesses to seamlessly integrate Talkdesk AI-driven solutions.
Digital receipts help retailer Longchamp drive customer engagement going beyond a simple proof of purchase by offering tailored recommendations, brand content and customer language preferences
Leather goods house, Longchamp has created a new marketing channel via digital receipts resulting in a 73% open rate and a 5.5% click rate. According to Yocuda, a leader in dynamic digital receipts, the affordable-luxury brand delivered 590,000 of them in 2024, helping the French brand to increase post-purchase engagement and lift its omnichannel experience for customers through better personalization. Yocuda claims it can “close the loop” on the in-store-to-online process while also reducing receipt printouts. These receipts, claimed by Yocuda to go beyond a simple proof of purchase by offering other features from tailored recommendations and brand content, to customer language preferences. From Longchamp’s side the aim is to strengthen customer relationships post-purchase and also achieve sustainability goals. Longchamp’s use of digital receipts has cut paper waste, saving 1.4 tonnes of carbon emissions in just one year. The digital receipts were integrated into the company’s existing point-of-sale system and, to date, the solution has processed over 2.3 million transactions and delivered over 1.2 million digital receipts globally. Edward Drax, managing director of Yocuda said that in future there would be opportunities to further enhance the digital receipt features. By leveraging this often overlooked element of the customer journey, Longchamp hopes to unlock new ways of reaching its consumers. According to Yocuda, its receipt solution can identify more than half (between 50% and 80%) of in-store customers and drive multichannel purchasing. So far, the company has processed over 2.3 billion receipts and identified over 225 million customers.
GrailPay to expand risk layer for ACH payments encompassing predictive analytics, real-time signals across account enrollment, transaction monitoring, and merchant underwriting
GrailPay, a risk and data platform for bank payments, announced $6.7 million in funding to expand its suite of tools that make ACH transactions safer, smarter, and faster. ACH is the backbone of the U.S. financial system—moving over $86 trillion last year alone—but remains riddled with fraud, credit risk, and operational failures. GrailPay is closing that gap with a modern intelligence platform designed to detect and prevent risk across the ACH lifecycle, before a transaction is ever initiated. GrailPay’s platform offers predictive analytics and real-time signals across account enrollment, transaction monitoring, and merchant underwriting. Its tools are used by payment platforms, lenders, fintechs, and software vendors to reduce failed payments, accelerate decisioning, and automate operations. Though GrailPay provides ACH processing, its tools are designed to be modular and standalone—meaning customers can adopt the platform’s intelligence offerings with or without using it for payments. Will Messina, CEO and co-founder of GrailPay said “We’re building the modern intelligence layer to unlock the next growth wave of payments tied to a bank account.”
The Financial Planning Association (FPA) launched a new behavior-based “Competency Model,” to help advisors develop their skills across — interpersonal impact, client communication and care, critical thinking, leadership, professionalism and advancing the profession
The Financial Planning Association (FPA) launched a new behavior-based “Competency Model,” a digital self-assessment and learning tool designed for financial planning professionals of all backgrounds. It is meant to help advisors develop their skills across six critical areas — interpersonal impact, client communication and care, critical thinking, leadership, professionalism and advancing the profession. The model’s tiered structure further develops these areas across career stages in foundational, intermediate and advanced levels of proficiency. Ben Lewis, chief communications officer for the FPA said, “The goal is to promote continuous learning, so the model is built around observable behaviors at foundational, intermediate and advanced levels. This offers a clear structure for development over time.” Although participation in the model is optional and not a requirement for FPA membership, Lewis said the learning tool is relevant for planners who wish to deepen client relationships and grow as professionals. Though the model is brand-new, it’s already garnering positive reactions. Melissa A. Caro, an FPA member and founder of the platform My Retirement Network, a digital media company, said because the learning modules emphasize the behavioral and interpersonal side of planning — in other words, the exact types of conversations that impact client trust, understanding and follow-through. The model brings clarity to the often-intangible skills that make a great planner and offers a roadmap for growth at every career stage, said Gregory Furer, who is also an FPA member and the founder and CEO of Pittsburgh-based Beratung Advisors.
Coinbase to launch ‘crypto operating account’ for small businesses; new Coinbase One Card will be powered by the AMEX offering up to 4% bitcoin back on every purchase; Coinbase with Stripe to enable stablecoin payments on Shopify
Coinbase plans to launch a “crypto operating account” for startups and small businesses later this year. The Coinbase Business platform will let these users send and receive payments, manage crypto assets and automate financial workflows. The company invited businesses to sign up on a waitlist for early access to the Coinbase Business alpha. Crypto and stablecoins offer “fast, global and low-cost money movement” that solves problems commonly faced by startups and small businesses, such as paying global talent; dealing with credit card fees, interest rates and chargebacks; and facing long settlement cycles. It’s why one in five small- and medium-sized businesses familiar with stablecoins already use them to streamline their operations. Coinbase Business will allow users to accept customer payments in crypto; pay vendors, employees and partners; trade and manage crypto; and earn rewards on their USDC stablecoins. The platform will also provide streamlined accounting reconciliation into platforms like QuickBooks and Xero.
Adflex’s straight-through processing tech to enable Coupa to fully automate the B2B spend management process by enabling virtual card numbers to be read automatically from within emails
Coupa has integrated Adflex’s straight-through processing service, Adflex STP, into its total spend management platform, saying this will fully automate the B2B payment process for Coupa customers and their suppliers. The Adflex STP service and virtual card reader technology enable virtual card numbers to be read automatically from within emails, allowing transactions to be processed without manual entry. This collaboration will simplify supplier acceptance and process integration, enabling suppliers to scale virtual card programs effectively, Bill Wardwell, senior vice president and general manager, Coupa Pay and Treasury, said. This new service is exclusively available through Coupa and Adflex partner Barclaycard Payments in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. Adflex also offers its automated virtual card payments service to all card issuers and their corporate clients. “Adflex STP levels the playing field of digital B2B payments by delivering the benefits of prompt, secure and pain-free transactions to both buyer and supplier,” Andy Downman, commercial director at Adflex, said.