Polygon’s launch of Heimdall v2 upgrade not only pushes transaction speeds but also appears to have implications for compliance, especially for fintech startups in Asia. Heimdall v2 is a revamped consensus client that significantly enhances the Polygon PoS network’s performance. The switch from Hex to Base64 encoding and the use of CometBFT for consensus allows for a staggering reduction in transaction confirmation times, going from 90 seconds to just 5 seconds. This leap in speed is crucial for anyone looking to adopt pay solutions that can facilitate instant transactions or accept cryptocurrency payments. With this kind of efficiency, it seems like Polygon is gearing up to be a major player in crypto banking, allowing for real time payments without missing a beat. Polygon’s advancements might indeed put them at a disadvantage. The bar has been raised for faster payments and scalability; keeping up with that will be tough. As Polygon looks towards institutional partnerships, smaller entities could find it hard to compete in terms of market share and tech capabilities. Polygon’s Heimdall v2 is a notable advancement with far-reaching implications for crypto payments and compliance. By enhancing transaction speed and security, it positions itself as a leader in the space, providing fintech startups a fighting chance in regulatory challenges. As the landscape evolves, these changes will undeniably influence the future of currency digital payments.
SAP Fioneer’s AI agent allows finance teams to generate complex reports using natural language by leveraging the suspense account analysis without the need to share data externally
SAP Fioneer has launched its AI Agent: an expert-built solution designed to intelligently enhance core operations of financial services institutions. By leveraging the suspense account analysis, finance teams can generate complex reports using natural language, significantly reducing manual effort, improving operational efficiency, and achieving considerable time savings. The Fioneer AI Agent delivers intelligence that is integrated into SAP Fioneer’s banking, insurance, and finance solutions, offering contextual, transparent, and actionable use cases without the need for custom development and heavy IT dependance. It empowers financial professionals to interact with data using natural language, eliminating reliance on IT teams and accelerating time to value. Designed for flexibility, the Fioneer AI Agent supports bring-your-own-LLM strategies as well as SAP BTP AI Core LLMs and will integrate with SAP Joule and other agents such as Microsoft Copilot. Integrated and aligned with the SAP strategy, it ensures full compliance with data privacy and auditability standards, making it a trusted solution for institutions seeking to scale AI responsibly and effectively. The first release of the Fioneer AI Agent lays the foundation for banks and insurers to automate processes, gain real-time insights, and make smarter decisions using natural language and without the need to share data externally. The Fioneer AI Agent is generally available now as an add-on for SAP Fioneer S/4HANA products in Banking, Insurance, and Finance.
Fnality partner Adhara and ioBuilders merge to scale DLT for institutions and capital markets
Fnality partner Adhara is merging with fellow institutional blockchain developer ioBuilders in a move that expands their scale to serve institutions through an expanded product offering. Adhara offers tokenized cash and settlement solutions, whereas ioBuilders has focused on capital markets. Both firms have a focus on Ethereum technologies, although ioBuilders also works with Hedera Hashgraph. Each company has worked with numerous banks. Adhara’s biggest customer is Fnality, the wholesale settlement solution owned by 20 institutions. That’s resulted in it working alongside the DTCC, Lloyds and Santander with other projects involving Deutsche Bank and UBS. It also has a contract from the Bank of Spain for a wholesale CBDC and tokenized deposit trial. ioBuilders with its 80 staff has also partnered several institutions, including the BME stock exchange, IDB and BBVA for a bond issuance, and Renta 4 Banco and Allfunds for fund tokenization. Industry investors see the combination as strategically significant. “This is the leading bank-to-bank blockchain software provider globally – ready to replace incumbents,” said Gerrit Seidel, General Partner at Yabeo which co-led Adhara’s 2021 Series A funding.
Pay-by-bank solution provider Trustly’s total payment value increases by 54% year over year in 2024 to $85 billion driven by new products and strategic partnerships in North America and Europe
Pay-by-bank solution provider Trustly reported that its total payment value increased by 54% year over year in 2024, driven by new products and partnerships in North America and Europe. The firm’s total payment value reached $85 billion, up from $55 billion in 2023. “Strategic partnerships have been critical for Trustly,” Trustly Group CEO Johan Tjärnberg said. “In Europe, our ongoing collaboration with [His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC)] strengthens our public sector leadership. In North America, expanded engagements with financial institutions and gaming providers highlight the strength and adaptability of our risk engine.” Trustly processed 1.3 billion HMRC payments totaling 4.7 billion pounds (about $6.4 billion) in January. The company’s collaborations in North America include BNY’s Bankify, Newline by Fifth Third, Coinbase, IGT, Light & Wonder, and an expanded partnership with Cross River Bank that now includes the FedNow® Service in addition to the RTP® network. On the product front, Trustly launched its artificial intelligence-powered recurring payments solution in June 2024, saying that a single integration enables merchants to accept repeat transactions directly from customers’ bank accounts. “By eliminating friction in repeat transactions, we’ve enabled merchants to better serve their customers and capture more revenue,” Tjärnberg said. “Similarly, our proprietary data engine, Azura, is driving higher engagement and conversion — proof of our innovation’s tangible impact.”
Simon Data’s marketing AI agents analyze the full spectrum of customer interactions and identify buying patterns to surface high-impact campaign opportunities and instant access to signals directly inside Snowflake data environment
Simon Data has launched Composable AI Agents for marketers, built natively on Snowflake Cortex AI and powered by Claude from Anthropic. They introduce a new operating model that provides marketers with direct, governed access to explore, identify, and activate data for personalization without requiring code or relying on data teams. The power of Composable AI Agents built on Cortex AI isn’t only that they execute—it’s where they execute. Simon’s agents run entirely inside the Snowflake environment. That means data, prompts, and activation all happen in place, under full enterprise governance, observability, and control. There’s no data movement, no black-box logic, and no compromise on speed or scale. Simon’s Composable AI Agents reveal hidden customer signals, integrate real-world context, and automate activation directly inside the data environment to unlock new capabilities. Imagine reaching customers who mentioned competitors in support calls. Or triggering offers to parents buying for teens who follow niche influencers. Or launching weather-based promotions to browsers in storm-affected regions. These use cases are no longer hypothetical. With Composable AI Agents, marketers gain hands-on control over signals and execution logic. Even small teams that once waited weeks for data pulls or SQL queries can now operate with the speed and precision of organizations with far more resources. With Simon, the marketing workflow doesn’t start with a segment; it starts with a goal, such as retaining customers, driving upsell, or increasing engagement in a specific region. Simon AI Blueprints turn these goals into agent-ready workflows—predefined strategies that guide how data is used, which signals to prioritize, and what activation logic to apply. From there, Simon’s Composable AI Agents work in concert to surface the right data, model the precise audiences, and activate campaigns. Three types of Composable AI Agents work alongside marketers to launch dynamic campaigns: Insights Agents analyze the full spectrum of customer interactions to surface high-impact campaign opportunities. Using Claude’s advanced reasoning capabilities, they identify patterns such as “customers buying kids’ products who mention back-to-school stress in support calls are 4x more likely to respond to convenience-focused messaging.” Marketers gain instant access to signals that would otherwise require custom analysis—no dashboards, no SQL, no handoffs. Data teams reduce exploration requests while enabling governed, self-service discovery inside Snowflake. Data Agents use breakthrough AI-generated “Smart Fields” technology to transform rich contextual data into actionable customer attributes. Instead of basic demographics, marketers now have access to insights like “weather sensitivity score” or “family purchase influence level.” Marketers can activate context without engineering lift or manual tagging. Data teams maintain full control over structure and access with zero data movement. Automation Agents execute campaigns using this deep contextual understanding, automatically creating and optimizing hundreds of adaptive micro-targeted campaigns. Marketers launch personalized campaigns in hours, not weeks. Data teams no longer export data or manage fragile reverse ETL pipelines.
Walmart’s transformation into a digital retail powerhouse is driven by narrowing e-commerce losses stemming from economies of scale, catchment area densification, and the ramp-up of high-margin membership and advertising revenue streams
Walmart’s transformation into a digital retail powerhouse has reshaped its earnings trajectory, according to a detailed e-commerce “Block” analysis from Morgan Stanley. The firm highlighted how Walmart has evolved over the past decade “from an old-economy brick-and-mortar retailer being disenfranchised by AMZN” into “an eCommerce, Retail Media and supply chain disruptor.” Morgan Stanley breaks Walmart’s digital evolution into three distinct phases: a “modest growth” stage from 2009 to 2012; a heavy investment phase from 2013 to 2019; and the current era marked by narrowing e-commerce losses and operating margin expansion. “E-commerce losses have narrowed to the point of near-breakeven,” analysts noted, as economies of scale, catchment area densification, and the ramp-up of high-margin Membership and Advertising revenue streams take hold. According to Morgan Stanley, the eCommerce “Block” includes three synergistic revenue sources: online merchandise sales (1P and 3P), Walmart Connect advertising, and Walmart+ membership fees. Though online merchandise is still “loss-making,” Morgan Stanley sees “narrowing losses” as scale lowers delivery costs. Advertising income is estimated at ~3.5% of GMV, with “~70% flow through to Adjusted Operating Income,” and Walmart+ now boasts ~15 million subscribers contributing ~$1.3 billion in revenue for 2024. With these elements working together, Morgan Stanley estimates Walmart’s U.S. e-commerce unit could generate ~$6 billion in incremental adjusted operating income over the next three years, with margins potentially in the “~10% to ~12% range.” Digital GMV has surged from $59 billion in 2022 to $89 billion in 2024, while ad revenue has increased from $1.9 billion to $3.2 billion over the same period. “Walmart’s digital flywheel supports long-term earnings growth,” Morgan Stanley concluded, forecasting continued strength as high-margin revenue streams outgrow digital sales.
DoubleVerify’s solution on Snapchat combines impression-level ad exposure metrics with eyes-on-screen data, delivering an unprecedented level of attention insight
DoubleVerify has launched DV Authentic Attention® for Social. The new offering combines DV’s scalable ad exposure data, including key metrics such as viewable time and screen share, with eyes-on-screen ad signals from Lumen Research, creating the most holistic attention solution available for advertisers seeking to measure their performance on Snapchat at scale. This is the first solution on Snapchat to combine impression-level ad exposure metrics with eyes-on-screen data, delivering an unprecedented level of attention insight across their platform. The solution enables advertisers to assess media performance on Snapchat with greater precision, helping inform budget decisions, validate campaign impact, and drive stronger ROI. DV Authentic Attention offers three main metrics to provide brands with actionable insights into their campaign performance: Ad Focus – Evaluates the ad’s ability to capture eye gaze, helping marketers understand the likelihood of an ad reaching users. Dwell Time – Measures how long an ad holds a user’s attention, quantifying in seconds the focus each ad receives to inform creative optimization. Attention Index – Offers an overall measure of attention on Snap and enables advertisers to benchmark their results against peer performance within their vertical. By measuring at the impression level, DV captures granular data that reveals the specific drivers of attention within each campaign, which powers insights that surpass the aggregated reporting used by other attention offerings on Social. For Snap advertisers, this enables a deeper understanding of how creative, placements, and activation strategies ultimately impact user attention.
AI mental health chatbots are integrating neuroscience, emotional resilience training and evidence-based psychological frameworks to offer mental health support, but outcomes remain elusive with flawed advice and lack of transparency
An increasing number of Americans are turning to AI chatbots like ChatGPT for emotional support, not as a novelty, but as a lifeline. These stats paint a hopeful picture: AI stepping in where traditional mental health care can’t. Blissbot.ai blends neuroscience, emotional resilience training and AI to deliver “scalable healing systems.” Blissbot was designed from scratch as an AI-native platform, a contrast to existing tools that retrofit mental health models into general-purpose assistants. Other companies, like Wysa, Woebot Health and Innerworld, are also integrating evidence-based psychological frameworks into their platforms. Despite the flurry of innovation, mental health experts caution that much of the AI being deployed today still isn’t as effective as claimed. “Many AI mental health tools create the illusion of support,” said Funso Richard, an information security expert with a background in psychology. “But if they aren’t adaptive, clinically grounded and offer context-aware support, they risk leaving users worse off — especially in moments of real vulnerability.” Even when AI platforms show promise, Richard cautioned that outcomes remain elusive, noting that AI’s perceived authority could mislead vulnerable users into trusting flawed advice, especially when platforms aren’t transparent about their limitations or aren’t overseen by licensed professionals. Used thoughtfully, AI tools can help free up clinicians to focus on deeper, more complex care by handling structured, day-to-day support — a hybrid model that many in the field see as both scalable and safe.
New order on third party TINs from FinCEN is a good step in the process of Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) modernization providing banks more flexibility to operate in a manner that suits their business model
New exemption orders from agencies including FinCEN, OCC and FDIC now permit banks to collect tax identification number (TIN) information from third parties rather than solely from the financial institution’s customer. That rule requires written procedures that allow a bank to obtain TIN information prior to opening an account and “are based on the bank’s assessment of the relevant risks.” The agencies stressed that the exemption is optimal, as banks are not required to use third-party providers. “The Order will benefit both consumers and the banking industry by promoting innovation and financial inclusion and providing banks more flexibility to operate in a manner that suits their business model,” OCC acting head Rodney Hood said. The agencies said that the new order supports the greater use of online and mobile channels to use online verification services to ensure compliance with KYC rules. In the order itself, the agencies stated that “reliable alternatives exist for verification today that did not exist or were not as prevalent twenty years ago” when customer identification processes were codified, adding that “there could be circumstances in which such processes produce an equivalent or more reliable outcome when banks are permitted the flexibility to change their method of TIN collection based on the bank’s assessment of the relevant risks. The combination of the increase in vulnerability of TINs to identity theft and the availability of reliable alternative options for verification lessens the importance of the specific method of TIN collection for identity verification.” The order added that “while FinCEN and the Agencies are not prescribing specific alternative processes for banks, such processes should take into consideration the purpose of the CIP Rule—to ensure a bank is able to form a reasonable belief that it knows the true identity of each customer—and the bank’s assessment of the relevant risks, including those presented by the various types of accounts maintained by the bank, the various methods of opening accounts provided by the bank, the various types of identifying information available, and the bank’s size, location, product and service offerings, and customer base.”
‘Elliptic’s platform offers enterprises the ability to ingest data streams directly into internal data lakes, customized workflows and AI models via subscription enabling them to directly query data
Elliptic has announced an industry first, offering direct access to its market-leading datasets and intelligence, ‘Elliptic Data Fabric,’ via subscription. ‘Elliptic Data Fabric’ offers customers the ability to ingest and subscribe to data streams directly, enabling access to Elliptic’s data and intelligence in the format, schema, and delivery method that best meets their specific needs. Elliptic’s data and intelligence feeds the customer’s internal data lakes, customized workflows and AI models — accelerating decision-making, modernizing connectivity and letting enterprises and agencies directly query the data, run internal analytics and compose leaner data workflows. Elliptic Data Fabric has use cases for multiple industries. Elliptic Blocklist is a direct plug-in data and intelligence subscription service used by exchanges, stablecoin issuers, and payments providers. The Blocklist is regularly updated with the latest intelligence. This enables customers to directly query data to either permit or block withdrawals to unhosted wallets without adding friction to the transaction flow. Elliptic Counterparty Risk is being used by banks and financial institutions to help them easily assess indirect digital asset risk stemming from their customers by enriching their fiat transaction screening workflows with custom intelligence on thousands of VASPs. By seamlessly integrating Elliptic’s VASP data into internal screening workflows, organizations uncover hidden risks by detecting when customers interact with high-risk or unregistered crypto platforms. Government agencies are already leveraging Elliptic Data Fabric to access operation-ready blockchain data and intelligence, seamlessly integrated into their environments, mission-specific use cases, and analyst workflows.