Tensec, a startup founded by ex-Rapyd, Meta, and Goldman Sachs executives, has raised $12 million in seed funding to take on the $190 trillion B2B cross-border payments market. Tensec wants to provide global trading companies and their clients access to cross-border real-time payments and transaction banking services that have historically been available only through large financial institutions. The firm uses AI, real-time payments and a global fintech infrastructure to create a no-integration platform that enables global trading companies to offer FX services, cross-border payments, treasury and more to their SMB clients. The company is already working with customers who facilitate $10 billion in annual trade volume.
NFC Release 15 extends operating volume of NFC-enabled devices 4X to 2cm to enable support for longer-distance connection and more complex, sensitive interactions such as Tap to Mobile and Multi-Purpose Tap on compact devices
NFC Release 15 is comprised of Specification Release 15 and Certification Release 15. The former are the technical standards to implement NFC capability in products, and the latter, the testing program to certify compliance to these standards. To align with NFC Release 15, users of newer generations of NFC enabled devices in reader mode will experience seamless connection and faster transaction. Increasing the operating volume across all NFC enabled devices – especially those that have a smaller form factor – while ensuring compatibility with ISO/IEC 14443, has been technically complex to achieve. The engineers working on the advancement had to be mindful of product design requirements, delicately managing a balance between improved performance and maintaining the antenna size. This thorough investigation has led to a 4x greater operating volume – extending the current range of 0.5cm to 2cm. Consumers stand to gain the most. A larger more stable operating volume makes the connection faster and more consistent and reduces occasions where consumers may need to tap or align devices more than once. There are many markets that will also benefit from this enhancement. For example, optimizing NFC usability within automotive; increasing read range to enable quicker throughput volumes within sectors such as public transport and transit; as well as enabling NFC to be used in new environments where connection points need to be at a greater distance. NFC is being integrated into increasingly compact devices that are expected to handle more complex, sensitive interactions – such as Tap to Mobile solutions that allow smartphones to accept payments, or Multi-Purpose Tap use cases where a single tap unlocks multiple functions. These applications demand higher reliability and a broader operating range to succeed.
Cross-border payments platform Conduit partners Braza Group to enable stablecoin-based cross-border transfers between Brazil, with settlement in just two minutes
Conduit, a cross-border payments platform, has partnered with Braza Group, a Brazilian foreign exchange bank, to enable customers to transfer funds between Brazil and the US using Onchain FX. Braza Group launched its stablecoin pegged to the BRL in February 2025 to help Brazilians connect with global financial technologies and support businesses. The two companies aim to build a simple and scalable global payments network, enabling faster settlements between Brazil and the US in just two minutes. Conduit’s platform offers both crypto-native infrastructure and traditional finance solutions, including instant and programmable global transactions with embedded AML, sanctions screening, and transaction monitoring. The collaboration follows Conduit’s Series A funding round and transaction volume surge in 2024. The platform’s ability to settle global transactions quickly and efficiently is reinforced by the partnership.
JPMorgan’s deposit tokens to represent fiat deposits, rather than claim on U.S. Treasuries, be fully permissioned, eligible for FDIC insuarnce and wouldn’t require new reserves or a third-party trust structure, making them a likely “alternative” to stablecoins for institutions
JPMorgan is planning a digital currency that looks and sounds like a stablecoin. But there are differences that have major ramifications for what the cryptocurrency payments market will look like in the post-GENIUS Act world. The bank said it plans to issue a permissioned USD deposit token, JPMD, for payments on Base, a blockchain that is built within Coinbase. JPMD will launch “in the coming days,” the bank said. “It’s going to be a big question in the near term as we see more institutions explore stablecoins: What’s a stablecoin, and what’s a deposit token?” James Wester, director of cryptocurrency research for Javelin Strategy & Research, told. A deposit token is a digital asset that is a claim on a deposit at a licensed depository institution, such as a bank. Deposit tokens are issued on a distributed ledger, or the structure that underpins cryptocurrency. That makes deposit tokens easier to transfer between consumers or businesses, particularly in different countries. Igor Pejic, author of “Big Tech in Finance,” said that.
NACHA says ACH is the most common and preferred method for healthcare claim payments owing to its speed, seamlessness and ability for providers and payors to automate the process
Every day across the U.S., lots of healthcare professionals receive lots of insurance payments, and new Nacha research shows there’s one common thread. Bryan Chamberlin, a partner at Guidehouse said, “ACH is by far the most common, most preferred method. In fact, the providers interviewed “told us that they really wanted all of their payors and all of their payments to be ACH. They acknowledged that it makes it fast, seamless and they have the ability to automate the process.” In contrast, Chamberlin said, “Where payments are not ACH, there is a reconciliation challenge, there could be manual processing.” Nacha reported there were 510 million ACH healthcare claim payments in 2024, a number that has been consistently rising for years. Still, there’s room for improvement, particularly among dentists, which tend to be smaller operators. Chamberlin said dentists “just don’t want to provide” information such as bank account numbers. Dentists also cited enrollment challenges with inconsistent requirements among the multiple insurers, plus concerns about insurers pulling back payments. “We want to elevate ACH in the healthcare space,” said Brad Smith, Nacha Senior Director, Industry Engagement and Advocacy. “When we look at ACH compared to other payment types—especially checks—we see that ACH is much lower cost. And any time we can lower costs in the healthcare space, the better off we’re going to be.”
Fintech Sunbit’s integration of Checkout.com’s AI tech that analyses and turns transaction data into real-time operational optimizations and auto-updates customer card details, drives a 6% lift in payment acceptance rates
Sunbit has reported a 6% increase in customer approval rates after integrating Checkout.com’s AI-powered payment acceptance technology. This improvement highlights how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the fintech landscape, especially in enhancing real-time decision-making and customer experience. Through its relationship with Checkout.com, Sunbit noticed a 6% increase in payment acceptance rates and lowered the cost. This collaboration demonstrates the growing demand for AI-powered payment acceptance in retail, where speed and precision can influence conversion rates. Sunbit technology leverages Checkout.com’s Intelligent Acceptance — a product allowing analysis of transaction data across the Checkout.com network, turning these insights into real-time operational optimizations to improve payment acceptance rates. Combined with Checkout.com’s Real-Time Account Updater, which automatically updates a customer’s card details when they change, and Network Tokenization, this has increased transaction-level acceptance rates while reducing processing costs. Sunbit’s engineering and product teams worked closely with Checkout.com’s payment experts, who continuously monitor payment performance to fine-tune processes and identify opportunities for improvement. This led to Sunbit qualifying for a favorable interchange fee program. Antoine Nougué, Chief Revenue Officer at Checkout.com said “By leveraging our Intelligent Acceptance technology and deep acquiring capabilities, Sunbit has increased efficiency while lowering costs, demonstrating the power of aligning technology, expertise, and shared ambition to deliver better outcomes for merchants and their customers”
Polar’s payments infrastructure platform for AI-native SaaS companies offers usage-based billing that auto-ingests customer events and token consumption from LLMs, automates entitlements and distributes them directly to customers without the need to deal with sales tax
Polar, the payments infrastructure company for AI-native SaaS companies, has raised a $10M seed round led by Accel to transform payments for the next generation of developers. Developers end up spending too much time integrating and maintaining billing instead of shipping impactful features for their customers. Polar changes this with a Merchant of Record (MoR) billing engine designed for AI-native SaaS and the next generation of developers. Polar integrates with just six lines of code and obsesses over developer ergonomics for modern programming languages and frameworks, meaning the developers behind this new wave of AI-native businesses can onboard and start accepting payments globally in minutes – faster than any other solution on the market. Developers can also focus on scaling their software internationally while Polar handles global sales taxes for them. To help developers monetize their products effectively, Polar comes with usage-based billing infrastructure that can automatically ingest customer events and token consumption from OpenAI or Anthropic to S3 consumption, data streams and more. Developers can also use Polar to automate common SaaS entitlements and digital products in minutes – from license keys, file downloads, GitHub and Discord access to custom entitlements – and distribute them directly to customers, offering a simple pathway to upselling without the need to deal with sales tax or build these features yourself. Built by and for the open source community, Polar also comes with seamless connections to Framer, Raycast, and Zapier. Average online sales have grown more than 120% month-on-month for the past six months.
Polar’s payments infrastructure platform for AI-native SaaS companies offers usage-based billing that auto-ingests customer events and token consumption from LLMs, automates entitlements and distributes them directly to customers without the need to deal with sales tax
Polar, the payments infrastructure company for AI-native SaaS companies, has raised a $10M seed round led by Accel to transform payments for the next generation of developers. Developers end up spending too much time integrating and maintaining billing instead of shipping impactful features for their customers. Polar changes this with a Merchant of Record (MoR) billing engine designed for AI-native SaaS and the next generation of developers. Polar integrates with just six lines of code and obsesses over developer ergonomics for modern programming languages and frameworks, meaning the developers behind this new wave of AI-native businesses can onboard and start accepting payments globally in minutes – faster than any other solution on the market. Developers can also focus on scaling their software internationally while Polar handles global sales taxes for them. To help developers monetize their products effectively, Polar comes with usage-based billing infrastructure that can automatically ingest customer events and token consumption from OpenAI or Anthropic to S3 consumption, data streams and more. Developers can also use Polar to automate common SaaS entitlements and digital products in minutes – from license keys, file downloads, GitHub and Discord access to custom entitlements – and distribute them directly to customers, offering a simple pathway to upselling without the need to deal with sales tax or build these features yourself. Built by and for the open source community, Polar also comes with seamless connections to Framer, Raycast, and Zapier. Average online sales have grown more than 120% month-on-month for the past six months.
Payments infrastructure platform Payabli is building advanced risk and fraud detection models trained on proprietary customer data to deliver business and industry-specific risk assessments
Payabli, the payments infrastructure platform for software companies, announced the closing of a $28M Series B funding round. As part of this investment, Payabli is exploring AI applications across two primary fronts: first, to streamline operations and drive efficiency across the organization, and second, to enhance its platform with smarter, more personalized customer experiences that ultimately increase revenue and margin. Payabli recently launched Amigo, its first AI-powered support agent, now available through the company’s technical documentation, web platform, and natively within Slack. Amigo delivers a wide range of functionality, from acting as a solution engineer that helps software companies integrate faster and more efficiently, to serving as a support representative that resolves tickets quickly and accurately, to functioning as a business analyst that assists software partners with reporting and analytics through a user-friendly, chat-based interface and much more. In parallel, Payabli is developing advanced risk and fraud detection models trained on proprietary customer data. Unlike one-size-fits-all solutions, these models are designed to deliver tailored risk assessments specific to each customer’s business and industry. To accelerate and scale this initiative, Payabli is partnering with NVIDIA to leverage their cutting-edge AI infrastructure. Following the successful launch of its On-Demand Payables product, the company is now introducing its first embedded Spend Management solution. Informed by direct feedback from existing customers, Payabli is reimagining embedded spend management by enabling software platforms to offer branded expense programs with both physical and virtual cards.
Samsung Wallet rolls out NFC P2P payments in the US that lets users transfer funds directly to a contact’s bank account by just tapping their two phones together
Samsung Galaxy owners in the US can now transfer funds directly to a contact’s bank account by just tapping their two phones together — or by simply bringing the recipient’s contactless bank card into close proximity. “Samsung Wallet’s new feature, Tap to Transfer, enables you to send money to your friend’s or family member’s bank account associated with their debit card — even if they use Apple Wallet or Google Wallet. Just tap phones and they’ll be sent the funds within minutes,” Samsung says. “It’s the first ever feature that allows you to send funds to another user’s debit card or smartphone, regardless of their wallet or operating system.” “Through Samsung’s collaboration with Visa and Mastercard, you can use a debit card stored in your Samsung Wallet to send money to friends and family members’ bank accounts without needing to download an additional app. “Instead, Samsung Wallet uses NFC technology to connect to the recipient’s debit card stored in their digital wallet. Plus, you can even transfer money to people without a digital wallet as long as they have a physical debit card with tap-to-pay capabilities.” If you want to send money to a Samsung Wallet but they aren’t nearby, you can easily find their Samsung account by searching their phone number and completing the transfer remotely.”