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TSB will offer customers who are fleeing or experiencing abuse, free access to Hollie Guard Extra for a year1 – simply by downloading the app and using a unique activation code. Those wishing to claim can discuss their situation in branch, over the phone or via video banking. Once installed, Hollie Guard Extra transforms an everyday smart phone into a personal safety device. TSB has added this level of protection to its existing domestic abuse support – which includes its Emergency Flee Fund² and Safe Spaces³.   With a simple tap or shake of the device, the user can send alerts to chosen emergency contacts, including the police, and a 24/7 monitoring centre. The app allows for a user’s location to be shared every five seconds, alongside audio and video recordings, helping to keep people safe in a vulnerable or potentially dangerous situation.  The app has already been downloaded by almost 500,000 people in the UK and Hollie Guard Extra is being used by police forces across England and Wales. In addition, it has led to numerous arrests and helped in more than 1,500 threatening and dangerous situations. TSB hopes that Hollie Guard Extra can provide further support to TSB’s Flee Fund – helping connect and protect victim-survivors having fled an abuser. 

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Plaid has updated its identity verification (IDV) product to counter the threat posed by fraudsters who use Gen AI. New features added to the product include deepfake and synthetic media detection, facial duplicate detection to catch repeat fraud attempts, age estimation to flag impersonation risks, and risk-based flows that adapt in real time to streamline trusted users and escalate high-risk ones. The upgrades are now available to all Plaid IDV customers, with no extra integration required. Powered by our Trust Index, these enhancements help you streamline verification for trusted users while tightening controls for higher-risk cases: Risk-Based Escalations; Selfie Re-Authentication; Trust Index Risk Check. By combining rich data sources and high-fidelity signals with the scale of our network, Plaid gives companies a faster, more secure way to verify identity and stop fraud at the front door.  These enhancements are available to all Plaid Identity Verification (IDV) customers out of the box, with no additional integration required.

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Alternative lending fintech Pagaya Technologies has its sights set on expanding its personal loan offering to regional and super-regional banks while it also builds out its marketing acquisition engine. Pagaya currently partners with banks such as U.S. Bank and neobanks such as SoFi to offer artificial intelligence-powered second-look personal loans to consumers who might not otherwise qualify. Pagaya integrates with lenders’ loan origination systems and buys the loans it originates from the lenders and sells those loans on the secondary market. It is also active in auto lending and point-of-sale buy now/pay later lending. All in, Pagaya counts 31 lenders as partners. Pagaya is in talks with four or five regional banks to help build out or expand their personal-loan offerings, co-founder and CEO Gal Krubiner told.  “There is a new era where people are starting to look at growth, and for the regional banks, personal loan is a good way to grow the franchise and to give solutions and products to their customers,” he said.  Many regional banks look to personal loans to help secure deposit inflows, a trend that Pagaya is hoping to capitalize on when bringing new partner banks into the fold, Krubiner said. “From our perspective … working with Pagaya could generate for a mid-sized bank over $1.5 billion of personal-loan origination in less than nine months,” Krubiner said, citing U.S. Bank’s performance on the platform. Pagaya is also using its integration into lenders’ underwriting platforms to offer pre-screened loans to potential customers in another avenue that it hopes will lead to growth, said Sanjiv Das, president of Pagaya.  “Think about our total market opportunity. We have 31 lending partners. Those 31 lending partners have about 60 million consumers as existing customers. We’ve only scratched the surface right now with the 3% [penetration],” Das, told. Pagaya is also working to help lenders “bid better” for leads from data aggregators, such as Credit Karma or Experian, Das said. The push toward regional banks comes on the heels of solid first-quarter earnings results that beat analysts’ estimates across nearly every metric. Revenue jumped 18% year over year to $290 million, ahead of analysts’ expected $285 million.  Net income landed at $8 million, or 10 cents per share, compared with a $21 million loss in the same reporting period last year and eclipsing analysts’ estimate of a $10 million, or 15 cent per diluted share, loss. Shares of Pagaya have risen about 26% since the company reported earnings on May 7, according to a research note from David Scharf at Citizens. Scharf attributes the gains to Pagaya hitting positive GAAP net income ahead of schedule.  KBW analyst Sanjay Sakhrani bumped his price target for Pagaya’s stock following the earnings report, pointing to pre-screen and affiliate channels as “growth drivers.”  “We believe PGY is well-positioned to shift toward revenue growth across its three loan markets — personal, auto, and POS and deliver profitability. While macroeconomic volatility may introduce risks to funding costs and underwriting capabilities, management’s disciplined risk approach and measured appetite provide confidence,” Sakhrani said. 

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Google is introducing one of the biggest revamps it has ever seen with the launch of a new design language called Material 3 Expressive. Set to arrive in Android 16, Material 3 Expressive is a sweeping new user interface update that aims to make the platform more visually appealing, emotional and interactive. It incorporates new motion physics, fresh color schemes, component updates and more impactful fonts to bring a fresh new look to Android, and potentially reshape how devices feel and function. Material 3 Expressive was announced , alongside new security features for “at risk” users. The company also revealed it’s expanding the availability of its Gemini generative AI models to Android-powered devices such as cars, TVs and wearables. According to Google, the Material 3 Expressive language will launch on Android handsets first, and we’ll likely see it on the next generation of Pixel smartphones, before expanding to Google’s broader app ecosystem.  Material 3 Expressive shares some of the basic design elements that debuted in the Material You system launched by Google four years ago, but it’s altogether much bolder, featuring “springy” animations, newer shapes and brighter splashes of color. “With the release of Android 16, users who choose to activate Advanced Protection will gain immediate access to a core suite of enhanced security features,” said Il-Sung Lee, Google’s product manager for Android Security. “Additional Advanced Protection features like Intrusion Logging, USB protection, the option to disable auto-reconnect to insecure networks, and integration with Scam Detection for Phone by Google will become available later this year.”

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The Wyoming Stable Token Commission has partnered with analytics provider Inca Digital on its forthcoming state-backed Wyoming Stable Token (WYST). WYST is said to be “the first fully-reserved, fiat-backed stable token issued by a U.S. public entity.” The asset will be fully backed by U.S. Treasurys, cash, and repurchase agreements. “The Commission’s goal is to enhance financial transparency and drive economic growth for the state, fortifying Wyoming’s position as a national leader in digital assets,” it wrote. Inca will provide real-time risk management solutions and other analytics services. “This collaboration will bolster the Commission’s ability to monitor and mitigate risks related to fraud, money laundering, and market anomalies, ensuring the safety and integrity of WYST for its users,” the commission wrote. Executive Director of the Wyoming Stable Token Commission Anthony Apollo said. “By leveraging Inca’s industry-leading intelligence tools, we are reinforcing our promise to deliver a trustworthy digital asset for Wyoming and beyond.” State authorities hope the token will enable “near-instant, dollar-denominated transactions worldwide” while offering “significantly lower fees compared to traditional financial systems.” At launch, WYST will be the first stablecoin directly issued by a government. 

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Pegasystems unveiled Pega Predictable AI™ Agents that give enterprises extraordinary control and visibility as they design and deploy AI-optimized processes. Businesses can deploy Pega Predictable AI Agents with confidence, accelerating value while minimizing risk. Pega Predictable AI Agents allow enterprises to avoid the sinkhole of “AI black boxes” by thoughtfully integrating AI agents into the world’s leading enterprise platform for workflow automation. Instead of providing nothing more than prompt-based authoring tools, basic dashboards, and vague advice to use it wisely, Pega maximizes the value of AI while minimizing risk with the following Pega Predictable AI Agents: Design Agents:  At the core of Pega Predictable AI Agents strategy is Pega Blueprint™, the industry’s first agents for workflow and decisioning design. Pega Blueprint leverages a collection of unique AI models and agents to generate workflows, next-best-action strategies, data structures, interfaces, user screens, security configuration, and more. It can also be invoked at runtime if a user needs to automate a process on the fly that isn’t already defined in the application. Conversation Agents: Leveraging the Pega Agent Experience™ API, Pega Blueprint can instantly create out-of-the-box conversational agents from any workflow. Automation Agents: Clients can incorporate these agents into their workflows as specific workflow steps, orchestrating agents both inside and outside of Pega to accelerate productivity in a transparent and reliable way. Knowledge Agents: Pega Blueprint leverages Pega Knowledge Buddy™ agents to create workflows that leverage industry best practices and to embed guidance inside other workflows. Coach Agents, such as Pega Coach, collaborate with humans involved in a workflow step to provide real-time, contextual guidance about the work.

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