dLocal, a cross-border payment platform for emerging markets, has expanded partnership with PayPal to offer businesses access to payment processing and local payment methods in more than 40 new untapped emerging markets. By leveraging dLocal’s platform, global customers of PayPal Enterprise Payments, previously known as Braintree, can now easily accept cards and process local and alternative payment methods across Latin America, EMEA, and APAC markets without needing to establish local entities. dLocal’s platform will handle both B2B and B2C payment flows, making it easy for businesses to connect with local customers and suppliers. As a result, merchants will gain access to a number of potential benefits including: Access to new, global customers: Integration will provide businesses with quick access to new global customers without having to establish a local entity or pay cross-border fees. Lessen tech debt and complexity: Businesses looking to process in these new markets can leverage their existing PayPal Braintree’s integration – and their stored cards – to process locally with minimal engineering and integration resources required. Increased authorization rates; and One source of truth: Businesses will have access to one single platform to manage local and international payments.
Marqeta’s processing volumes surge 27% on card issuance; that non-Block TPV grew at 2x faster than Block TPV
Marqeta’s first quarter results surged across several metrics as new and existing card issuance programs grew on a global stage across debit and credit channels, and the company’s platform gains a tailwind as it enables new BNPL and embedded finance offerings. Total processing volume (TPV) of $84 billion was up by 27%. Forward looking guidance looks for net revenue growth in the range of 13% to 15%. Mike Milotich, interim CEO and CFO, said that net revenue growth of 18% to $139 million. Beyond Block (the company’s largest customer at 45% of Marqeta revenues), Milotich said that non-Block TPV grew at 2x faster than Block TPV, “fueled by a wide range of customers across several use cases. Consistent with the last several quarters, financial services, lending including buy now, pay later, and expense management drove the bulk of our TPV growth.” Lending and expense management TPV continued to grow over 30% “and both accelerated a bit from last quarter,” given a boost by the combination of Klarna’s migration to the Marqeta platform in Europe, and “our BNPL customers benefiting from the increased adoption of Pay Anywhere card solution and distribution through wallets, both are supported in part by newly available flexible network credentials and strong user growth among SMB lending solutions.” He also said that despite a challenging macro environment, there has not been a spending shift across the platform, telling analysts, “Breaking down the spend by low, medium and high discretionary TPV based on merchant category reveals no meaningful shift in the mix of spending in Q1 versus the past several quarters.”
Barracuda Networks’s multimodal AI simultaneously correlates and analyzes diverse text and visual data types including URLs, documents, images, QR codes and more to offer more adaptive defense against zero-day attacks
Barracuda Networks unveiled new threat detection capabilities fueled by multimodal AI that deliver context-aware protection against emerging attacks. The new capabilities give Barracuda’s platform the ability to protect against attacks with accuracy and speed by simultaneously correlating and analyzing diverse text and visual data types – including URLs, documents, images, QR codes and more. The new capabilities introduce a new integration with multimodal AI, technology that synthesizes and interprets numerous data streams in various formats, with ML classifiers and a purpose-built sandbox engine. Doing so delivers a faster, smarter and more adaptive defense layer that detects more than three times as many malicious files at eight times the speed of previous models. The capabilities significantly strengthen Barracuda Advanced Threat Protection, which provides layered security across the Barracuda platform. The new capabilities also enhance Barracuda LinkProtect, which inspects URLs for hidden threats, malicious scripts, suspicious redirects and other attacks using a virtual sandbox and secure, isolated browser environment. By incorporating multimodal AI, Barracuda can now detect not only known threat signatures but also subtle anomalies across multiple content formats that may indicate novel or zero-day attacks. The capability is particularly useful at a time when threat actors continue to blend social engineering, image-based lures and malicious links into more convincing and evasive campaigns.
Meta is considering using stablecoins for cross-border payments; Instagram could integrate stablecoins to facilitate small payouts in the range of $100 to creators in different markets
Meta is reportedly considering adopting stablecoins as a way to make cross-border payments. The company is in discussions with crypto firms and is likely to use more than one type of stablecoin. The company is looking at stablecoins as a way to make cross-border payments without the fees associated with wire transfers and other payment methods. One executive at a crypto infrastructure provider suggested Meta’s subsidiary Instagram could integrate stablecoins to facilitate small payouts in the range of $100 to creators in different markets, which would result in lower fees than if paid by fiat currencies. They described Meta as being in “learn mode,” adding that Meta would likely be agnostic toward the type of stablecoin it used, rather than choosing one provider, such as Circle’s USDC. Meta announced the initiative — first called Libra and later named Diem — in 2019 but abandoned it in early 2022 when the initiative met with opposition from regulators and lawmakers. Meta’s interest in the technology reflects the growing interest in stablecoins among non-crypto companies, especially as congressional lawmakers debate two bills that would regulate stablecoins after years of regulatory uncertainty.
Zilliz Cloud is supporting powering database infrastructure of AI applications through sub-10ms latency, zero downtime and outages, 70% savings in infrastructure costs, 10% improvement in search accuracy and 8% faster responsesdelivers sub-10ms latency and cost savings for AI-first companies
Organizations implementing Zilliz Cloud are experiencing transformative performance improvements that directly impact their AI applications: 1) CX Genie doubled query performance after migrating to Zilliz Cloud, reducing latency to just 5–10ms across over 1 million embeddings. The team eliminated recurring downtime and improved global service reliability — critical for its always-on AI-powered customer support. Latency: 2× faster, now 5–10ms; Uptime: Zero daily downtime; Costs: 70% infrastructure savings. 2) Beatoven.ai, an AI-powered music creation platform, shortened generation time by 2–3 seconds per track after adopting Zilliz Cloud — improving creative workflows for its 1.5 million+ users. Tracks: Over 6 million AI-generated; Speed: 2–3s faster music creation; Costs: 6× reduction in operational spend. 3) Ivy.ai powers AI chatbots for higher education and government institutions. As data volumes surged by 200%, Zilliz Cloud enabled them to maintain consistent response times without a single outage. Data growth: +200%; Reliability: Zero outages; Consistency: Stable response times at scale 4) Dopple Labs uses Zilliz Cloud to store and retrieve long-term memory embeddings for Dopple.ai, its virtual AI companion. By improving context awareness across conversations, Dopple now offers more natural, personalized interactions. Context: Improved memory across sessions; Interactions: More personalized, human-like dialogue 5) EviMed, a medical AI platform, integrated Zilliz Cloud to manage 350M+ medical knowledge entries. They achieved better search accuracy and faster responses while cutting system costs. Accuracy: +10% in clinical search precision; Speed: +8% faster responses; Efficiency: 30% lower operational cost. The results reported by Zilliz Cloud customers show that database infrastructure is no longer just backend plumbing — it’s a core driver of AI performance, reliability, and cost-efficiency. The ability to deliver sub-10ms latency, reduce outages, and cut operational costs gives AI teams a powerful edge in a competitive market.
Almost half of U.S. adults who use buy now, pay later products have experienced at least one financial problem: new study
Almost half of U.S. adults who use buy now, pay later products have experienced at least one financial problem, according to results of a survey from the consumer financial services company Bankrate and the market research firm YouGov. Bankrate and YouGov surveyed 2,354 U.S. adults between March 19 and 21. Of those who participated, about 30% said they had used at least one buy now, pay later service. Of those who used BNPL services, 49% of those surveyed reported at least one financial issue: 24% said they outspent their budget, 16% noted missing a bill payment after making a BNPL purchase, 15% regretted a BNPL purchase and 14% said they had a problem with a refund or a return. Taking out multiple buy now, pay later services at a time is among the biggest warning signs, Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst for Bankrate said, because BNPL is used most frequently by financially vulnerable populations such as the working class and young people. “People find this a valuable payment method to spread out their cash flow. The problem is if you overdo it and you lose sight of how much you spent. That’s concerning because it shows how close to the edge people are,” he said.
Celonis API allows developers to quickly choose and configure the data collected by its engine about a company’s business processes and make it available to AI applications via a simple interface
Celonis introduced a new version of its platform’s Process Intelligence API. The feature makes the data that Celonis collects about a company’s business processes available to artificial intelligence services. Those services, in turn, can use the data for tasks such as finding opportunities to boost efficiency. According to Celonis, the new version of the API includes a relatively simple interface that allows developers to quickly configure what data should be made available to which AI application. In conjunction with the API update, the company detailed that it has integrated a tool called Emporix Orchestration Engine into its platform. The tool was originally developed last year by a German tech firm called Emporix. It uses the data that Celonis collects about its customers’ internal processes to automate repetitive business tasks. Celonis acquired Orchestration Engine from Emporix as part of the product integration initiative. Two other features, Annotation Builder and Process Copilots, were moved into general availability as part of the platform update. Annotation Builder makes unstructured datasets easier to navigate by adding descriptive tags. Process Copilots, in turn, are chatbots that help workers find business information using natural language prompts. That removes the need to manually sift through internal data repositories. Celonis is rolling out the enhancements alongside four so-called Solution Suites. Those are feature bundles geared towards specific use cases that include integrations with external services, prepackaged automation workflows and other components. The Solution Suites are geared toward supply chain, finance, front office and sustainability professionals.
Uber Eats “Savings Slider,” lets shoppers compare prices for items on their grocery list within stores, or even get recommendations for nearby stores offering better deals
Uber has rolled out a series of products designed to help customers save money. Among the new offerings is Route Share, which offers pickups every 20 minutes along busy corridors during weekday commute hours with up to two co-riders, with fares up to 50% cheaper than the cost of an UberX. There are also Ride Passes, which let riders pay $2.99 per month to lock in a price for a set route and save up to $50 a month, or pay upfront for five, 10, 15 or 20 rides on regular routes to access even larger discounts. Meanwhile, the company is also introducing a product for Uber Eats called “Savings Slider,” which lets shoppers compare prices for items on their grocery list within stores, or even get recommendations for nearby stores offering better deals. The new offering comes amid signs that Americans are feeling increasing financial pressures. “We’re hearing it more and more these days — life just feels like a lot. Too complicated. Too uncertain. And above all, too expensive,” the tech giant said in announcement. “That’s why at Uber we’re building practical products to make life a little more affordable — and a lot easier.”
Qvinci Software simplifies financial analysis of multi-entity businesses- Eliminations Entries feature removes the impact of transactions between related companies
Qvinci Software has launched new products and enhancements to strengthen their offering of automating time-consuming manual tasks common in traditional financial and business intelligence reporting, so that business leaders can focus on proactive, revenue-impacting initiatives. New Report Categorization and Packaging features enable searching, filtering, bulk-pinning, and building customized financial and business intelligence report packages in minutes, instead of hours or days using other accounting platforms. New Report Interact functionality allows for switching dollar/percentage views, filtering by specific entity in a multi-entity report, and focus mode to highlight cells that need attention – all without numerous data re-runs. A new suite of Business Intelligence Dashboards and Reporting Templates target key financial metrics that simplify impactful coaching and advising by identifying problem areas that need corrective action. For global organizations, Currency Conversion tools now fully support QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, and Xero, eliminating the hassle of manual in-app currency adjustments. Qvinci Budgets with Future Budgeting enables users to import Excel-based budgets to use with templates for precise financial planning, as well as use Qvinci Budgets with QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Online, or QuickBooks by Class. With Non-Sunday Aligned Reporting, organizations (i.e., hospitality brands, franchises, faith-based institutions, etc.) can generate reports based on their busiest operational days using customizable accounting calendars. Now, “As Of Week” reporting is available, making it easy to define the week through which reports should be run. With enhanced Security Infrastructure – including multi-factor authentication, PCI certification, and a published formal security framework – Qvinci ensures enterprise-grade data protection. Lastly, Eliminations Entries, used to remove the impact of transactions between related companies, can now be handled directly within the Qvinci solution, cutting down drastically on needless complexity and manual labor.
ShopBack to launch in the US- the only cashback platform where users can earn real cashback on Amazon purchases whether on the ShopBack browser extension and/or mobile app
ShopBack, Asia-Pacific’s shopping and rewards platform with over 50 million users across 13 markets, announced its official launch in the United States with a slate of features and offers exclusive to the U.S., from over 2,000 merchants: Exclusive Cashback on Amazon — ShopBack is the only cashback platform where users can earn real cashback on Amazon purchases whether on the ShopBack browser extension and/or mobile app. ShopBack Play — ShopBack offers a gamified experience where shoppers can earn cashback by completing milestones and playing games within the app including Monopoly Go, Township, Block Blast and more. Shipping rebates on participating stores — In addition to earned cashback, ShopBack enables shoppers to receive money back on shipping fees, an added perk available only to U.S. users. Quests — ShopBack introduces an engaging way for users to earn additional cashback bonuses when they complete shopping quests, whilst allowing brands to connect directly with high-intent shoppers through customized rewards campaigns. Auto-applied coupons — ShopBack’s browser extension automatically finds and applies the best available promo codes at checkout — no manual searching required from users. Josephine Chow, head of expansion at ShopBack said “By combining cashback, deals, and gamified experiences, we’ve built a platform designed for today’s digitally-savvy consumer. In fact, new users who engage with Shopback’s ‘Quests’ globally each month go on to spend 80% more than average users – proof that saving money can be fun and rewarding for both users and partners.”