PayPal announced that PayPal Credit can now be used everywhere with the introduction of a new physical card, issued by Synchrony. This expands its popular digital PayPal Credit offering to use both online when checking out with PayPal and in-store and everywhere Mastercard® is accepted. When using the new physical card, customers will also have access to a limited-time offer to pay for travel purchases over six months with promotional financing and no minimum spend1. This gives account holders a more manageable way to pay for qualifying travel purchases like flights, hotels, cruises, and ride shares, which can be spread over time to best suit their budget and needs. This is PayPal’s next flexible payment innovation that caters to customers looking to take PayPal Credit everywhere. In addition to the limited-time travel offer, customers can continue to enjoy six-month promotional financing on PayPal purchases over $149. Customers looking for flexibility at checkout can also apply for a PayPal Buy Now Pay Later loan which lets them break purchases into smaller payments over weeks or months. The physical card will be rolling out in the coming weeks to US customers.
CrowdStrike and Microsoft partner to create a shared mapping system for cyber threat intelligence that links adversary identifiers across vendor ecosystems without mandating a single naming standard
CrowdStrike Holdings and Microsoft have announced a strategic collaboration to address confusion in identifying and tracking cyberthreat actors across security platforms. The partnership aims to create a shared mapping system that aligns adversary attribution across both companies’ threat intelligence ecosystems, eliminating ambiguity caused by inconsistent naming. The “Rosetta Stone” for cyber threat intelligence links adversary identifiers across vendor ecosystems without mandating a single naming standard. This enables defenders to make faster, more confident decisions, correlate threat intelligence across sources, and better disrupt threat actor activity before it causes harm. The collaboration will start with a shared analyst-led effort to harmonize adversary naming between CrowdStrike and Microsoft’s threat research teams. Microsoft and CrowdStrike aim to continue working together to expand this effort and maintain a shared threat actor mapping resource for the global cybersecurity community.
Deutsche Bank to integrate Mastercard’s open banking tech into its platform, to enable merchants to leverage Request to Pay (R2P) service as a preferred payment method
Deutsche Bank and Mastercard announced a strategic partnership designed to accelerate the evolution of open banking and redefine the payment experience for merchants and consumers across Europe. The collaboration will elevate Deutsche Bank’s Merchant Solutions offering, particularly its Request to Pay (R2P) service, by introducing new levels of choice, flexibility, and efficiency with account-to-account based payments on Mastercard’s trusted open banking network. This partnership positions Deutsche Bank and Mastercard at the forefront of payment innovation enabling merchants to offer “Pay by Bank” functionality through Deutsche Bank’s Merchant Solutions. The partnership empowers merchants to leverage R2P as a preferred payment method giving consumers the ability to authorize payments directly from their bank accounts with real-time processing and immediate confirmation. Mastercard’s open banking technology will be fully integrated into Deutsche Bank’s platform, supporting faster settlement, enhanced reconciliation, and greater payment transparency.
OatFi is building a credit network to address the opposing cash flow conundrum in B2B payments by embedding its underwriting, origination, and funding capabilities directly into the platforms within their AP, AR, and commercial charge card workflows
Fintech infrastructure startup OatFi has raised $24 million in Series A funding to build a credit network for business-to-business payments. In traditional B2B transactions, buyers and suppliers often operate on opposing cash flow incentives. Suppliers seek fast post-delivery payments to recover working capital, while buyers look to delay payments to preserve operating cash and liquidity. By embedding its underwriting, origination, and funding capabilities directly into B2B payment platforms within their AP, AR, and commercial charge card workflows, OatFi’s APIs enable platforms to facilitate B2B transactions with built-in financing at the point where it’s needed most. “B2B payments are not just a money movement challenge—they’re a data and workflow challenge,” says Michael Barbosa, CEO, OatFi. “That’s why we’ve focused on deep API integrations that offer working capital solutions within the platforms that businesses already rely on to pay and get paid.”
HSBC UK Private Banking adopts Addepar’s client reporting platform to enable offering holistic view of clients’ wealth through aggregated performance across their entire investment portfolio including investments held with other wealth managers
HSBC UK Private Banking is the first major UK bank to adopt Addepar’ software platform designed specifically for wealth managers. The Addepar platform provides an enhanced client reporting experience, with complex aspects such as alternatives and account aggregation. Relationship managers and investment advisers can provide clients with bespoke, comprehensive performance data and insights on their investments with just a few clicks. Additionally, the platform can also aggregate performance for clients who hold investments with other wealth managers, meaning clients can see a full picture of their entire investment portfolio. Charles Boulton, Head of Private Banking, HSBC UK, said: “Addepar’s platform will mean that clients have the best possible insights at their fingertips to manage an increasingly complex financial landscape. Being able to present a client’s entire portfolio to them so they have a holistic view of their wealth across multiple currencies and multiple wealth managers will be a big step forward for us.” James Thomson, Head of Investment Counselling, HSBC UK Private Banking, said: Our new reporting capabilities will mean our investment advisors can deliver deeper insights and greater transparency to our clients in a more efficient way, meaning they can spend more time on what matters most: providing our clients with high quality advice supported by robust analytics.”
Intuit’s agentic AI can get customers paid 45% faster, an average of five days sooner through automated transaction matching and invoice review enabling it to offer personalized experiences in real-time
Intuit has been working on a generative AI revolution for over a decade, culminating in the creation of Intuit’s GenOS, launched in June 2023. GenOS powers all of Intuit’s generative AI and agentic experiences, abstracting away the complexity of various underlying systems to allow for large-scale deployment of AI agents. The system now powers production-ready AI agents, including accounts receivable and accounts payable agents designed to automate cash flow management tasks. As chief AI and data officer Ashok Srivastava, Intuit’s agentic system can get customers paid 45% faster, an average of five days sooner, thanks to automated transaction matching and invoice review. This tangible outcome matters more than the underlying model count, as it allows Intuit to personalize AI experiences in real-time, delivering cash flow forecasts, intelligent recommendations, and context-aware automation tailored to the customer’s immediate needs. Intuit’s commitment to open source is another pillar of its strategy, with projects like Admiral, NumaProj, and Agroproj contributing to the broader community and leveraging the best available technologies. Intuit has received the End User Award from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation twice, and its platform powers a suite of widely-used products including QuickBooks, TurboTax, Mailchimp, and Credit Karma. Srivastava believes that AI agents can help small businesses and consumers do better, as many US firms are under pressure from economic changes and face reduced access to capital. He also remains optimistic about the use of AI in the field of art, seeing it as just another medium, not a replacement.
Square’s conversational AI assistant can answer sellers’ questions about how to use its business technology platform and about trends in their own business by searching its knowledge base and using the seller’s relevant data within its platform
Square has launched a conversational AI assistant that can answer sellers’ questions about how to use Square’s business technology platform and about trends in their own business. The AI assistant, Square AI, is available now in public beta for all sellers in the U.S. and is integrated into the Square Dashboard. “Our goal is to give each seller their own virtual employee that knows every bit of their business,” Willem Avé, global head of product at Square, said. When asked questions about using the platform, the AI assistant searches its knowledge base and provides step-by-step instructions. To answer questions about the seller’s business, Square AI uses the seller’s relevant data within Square to provide the answer. It can answer questions about sales, customers, staff and transactions, enabling sellers to optimize staff hours, identify slow-moving inventory, maximize top sellers and recognize top customers. The company will expand these capabilities throughout the year. To protect the data within the business, the AI assistant is only available for account owners and administrators. In addition, Square never sends sensitive information to model providers or partners, and it ensures no data processed by third-party companies is retained outside of Square systems or used for any type of training
PayPal taps Mastercard’s One Credential feature to enable consumers to set preference whether to pay with debit, installments, prepaid or credit for online or in-store purchases depending on the transaction
Mastercard and PayPal have partnered to co-develop features using Mastercard’s One Credential, a solution that enables consumers to use a single credential when shopping online or in-store. The companies aim to use this solution to give consumers more choice and control over how they pay at checkout, allowing them to access multiple payment options. One Credential can also help PayPal users improve their creditworthiness and progress from debit to installments and other structured credit. “We both want to reduce friction for consumers and bring them more power over how they pay,” Chris Sweetland, senior vice president of partnerships at PayPal, said. Bunita Sawhney, chief consumer product officer at Mastercard, said that the partnership with PayPal will build on “our collective strength of global payments innovation. With One Credential, we’re delivering the personalized digital experiences that build consumer confidence and trust.” Mastercard’s One Credential will allow consumers to choose to pay with debit, installments, prepaid or credit. Users can set their preferences online or in an app. They can also set preferences based on transaction type and time. For example, users can specify their checking account for expenses under $100, their credit card for expenses over $100 and installments for occasional larger purchases. Mastercard is now rolling out One Credential as a network-level capability worldwide.
Phonely’s conversational AI agents reduce response times by more than 70% the awkward delays that immediately signal to callers they’re talking to a machine
A three-way partnership between AI phone support company Phonely, inference optimization platform Maitai, and chip maker Groq has achieved a breakthrough that addresses one of conversational AI’s most persistent problems: the awkward delays that immediately signal to callers they’re talking to a machine. The collaboration has enabled Phonely to reduce response times by more than 70% while simultaneously boosting accuracy from 81.5% to 99.2% across four model iterations, surpassing GPT-4o’s 94.7% benchmark by 4.5 percentage points. The improvements stem from Groq’s new capability to instantly switch between multiple specialized AI models without added latency, orchestrated through Maitai’s optimization platform. The system works by collecting performance data from every interaction, identifying weak points, and iteratively improving the models without customer intervention. “Since Maitai sits in the middle of the inference flow, we collect strong signals identifying where models underperform,” Matai founder Christian DalSanto explained. “These ‘soft spots’ are clustered, labeled, and incrementally fine-tuned to address specific weaknesses without causing regressions.” The performance gains translate directly to business outcomes. “One of our biggest customers saw a 32% increase in qualified leads as compared to a previous version using previous state-of-the-art models,” Will Bodewes, Phonely’s founder and CEO noted. For call centers and customer service operations, the implications could be transformative: one of Phonely’s customers is replacing 350 human agents this month alone.
Fintech OneBanx’s APIs enable banks to integrate cash deposit and withdrawal capabilities into their mobile banking apps via OneBanx kiosks
UK-based fintech OneBanx is integrating cash deposit and withdrawal capabilities into partner banks’ mobile apps, aiming to bridge the gap between digital banking and physical cash access. The company is developing secure APIs to enable customers to initiate and complete cash deposits and withdrawals from OneBanx kiosks using their existing mobile banking apps. This integration complements existing digital payment solutions, providing a more comprehensive service offering. OneBanx’s joint white paper with Enryo highlights the importance of a long-term strategic approach for cash users. Benefits for Banks and Their Customers : Enhanced Customer Experience: Customers can enjoy a unified banking experience, managing their finances and accessing cash through a single, familiar platform. Increased Digital Engagement: Introducing cash access features within bank apps can serve as a gateway for customers who are less digitally active, encouraging gradual adoption of digital banking services. Cost-Effective Infrastructure: Banks can extend their service reach without the overhead of maintaining traditional branch networks, leveraging OneBanx’s kiosk infrastructure.