Rox Secures $1.2 Billion Valuation as AI Sales Agents Scale
Rox, an AI‑driven sales‑automation startup, closed a funding round that lifted its valuation to $1.2 billion. The company projects $8 million in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2025. Launched in November 2024 with $50 million in seed and Series A capital from Sequoia Capital and General Catalyst, Rox’s platform automates outreach, prospecting, opportunity management and meeting assistance. A recent partnership embeds its Revenue Agents into Microsoft Copilot, expanding reach to more than 5,000 organizations worldwide.
Senate Passes Housing Bill Without CCCA Amendment
The Senate approved the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act on March 12 with an 89‑to‑10 vote, but the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA) amendment was stripped from the final text. The CCCA, championed by Senators Roger Marshall and...
Hiring Remains Flat While Layoffs Edge Down in January
January job openings increased by 396,000 to 6.9 million, lifting the openings rate to 4.2% after a five‑year low in December. Hires held steady at 5.3 million, while total separations fell, with quits down 88,000 and layoffs decreasing by 35,000 to the...
Adobe Ends Federal Subscription Lawsuit With $150 Million Settlement Package
Adobe agreed to a $150 million settlement to resolve a Justice Department and FTC lawsuit alleging it concealed early‑termination fees and made cancellations difficult. The deal provides $75 million in free services to eligible customers and a $75 million payment to the government....
Truist Picks Plaid to Expand Open Banking Offering
Truist Financial announced a partnership with Plaid to broaden its open‑banking capabilities, adding Plaid’s API network to the bank’s digital platform. The collaboration follows Truist’s recent integration with Mastercard’s open‑finance technology and aims to improve data quality, fraud detection, and...
New Freightos CEO Pablo Pinillos Targets Q4 Financial Break Even
Freightos announced that its CFO and interim chief executive, Pablo Pinillos, will become permanent CEO and join the board on March 16, succeeding founder Zvi Schreiber. Pinillos, who joined as CFO in March 2025, pledges to steer the digital freight...
Wizz Financial and BitGo Team on X-Border Stablecoin Payments
Wizz Financial announced the completion of its first stablecoin‑powered cross‑border remittance, sending funds from the United States to 80 countries using BitGo’s wallet and eTrade services. The transaction showcases the launch of Wizz’s proprietary stablecoin and blockchain strategy via the...
Santander and Visa Launch LatAm Agentic Payments Project
Santander and Visa have launched Latin America’s first end‑to‑end agentic commerce pilot, completing real‑world transactions in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay using Visa Intelligent Commerce. AI agents bought chocolates in Brazil and books in the other markets, proving that...
Bank of America Targets the $600 Billion Accounts Receivable Problem
Bank of America highlights a $600 billion excess working‑capital gap in U.S. accounts receivable, noting rising day‑sales‑outstanding (DSO) as firms struggle to convert invoices into cash. Andy Murphy explains that aging AR acts as a hidden liability, forcing companies into costly short‑term...
Banks Use AI to Make Credit Card Rewards More Personal
Banks and payment networks are deploying artificial intelligence to reshape credit‑card rewards, moving the battle from the checkout to an AI‑driven offers feed. By mining transaction histories and behavioral signals, issuers can generate merchant discounts and category bonuses that match...
LoanDepot Tech Investment Powers Highest Loan Volume Since 2022
LoanDepot reported a 23% quarter‑over‑quarter increase in loan origination volume, reaching $8.04 billion—the highest since 2022. The surge lifted its market share to 1.4%, up 19% from the prior quarter. Company executives attributed the growth to recent technology investments, including AI...
Elon Musk Says X Money Set to Debut in April
Elon Musk announced that X Money, the financial services arm of the X platform, will enter early public access in April 2026. The rollout follows a multi‑year push to turn X into a super‑app, with a Visa Direct partnership enabling...
Lyzr Valuation Jumps to $250 Million as Enterprises Deploy AI Agents
Lyzr, an agentic AI firm, closed a $14.5 million Series A+ round led by Accenture, lifting its valuation to $250 million—a fivefold jump from the prior $50 million. The company’s enterprise‑grade platform now supports over 1 million live agents, more than 30,000 developers, and...
Premium Cards Battle Escalates as Credit Balances Rise
Consumer credit expanded at a 1.9% annualized rate in January, with revolving balances rising 4.3% despite a modest slowdown. Premium‑fee cards, many charging over $600 annually, are witnessing heightened competition as fintechs like Robinhood and Revolut join incumbents. Research shows...
CFOs See Month-End as the Front Line of Finance Automation
Month‑end close remains one of finance's most labor‑intensive tasks, with spreadsheets and manual reconciliations still dominant despite ERP deployments. CFOs are now adding automation layers that ingest data from payments, banks, and internal systems to reconcile records using rules and...
Alchemy Pay Hits 15 Money Transmitter Licenses With Delaware Win
Alchemy Pay announced it secured a Money Transmitter License in Delaware, bringing its total U.S. state coverage to 15. The company added four licenses this year, including Nebraska, South Dakota and West Virginia, expanding its regulated fiat‑crypto payment network. Alchemy...
FedNow Pushes FEMA Disaster Aid From Days to Seconds
The Federal Reserve’s FedNow service now powers FEMA’s disaster‑relief payouts, moving funds from days or weeks to seconds. Transaction limits have been raised to $10 million, enabling large‑scale disbursements directly to states, municipalities and households. This capability is part of a...
Visa Taps Veteran Leonardo Collado to Lead Pismo’s Global Growth
Visa has appointed senior vice president Leonardo J. Collado as general manager of Pismo, effective April 1. Collado, who oversees value‑added services for Latin America and the Caribbean, brings 25 years of payments experience to the role. The move follows...
PayPal and TCS Blockchain Modernize Logistics Payments
PayPal and TCS Blockchain have partnered to launch a blockchain‑based payment platform that uses PayPal USD (PYUSD) stablecoin to settle freight invoices. The solution promises same‑day, year‑round settlement and cost reductions of up to 90% compared with traditional invoice factoring....
Billtrust Debuts Agentic Credit to Catch Payment Risks
Billtrust announced the Agentic Credit Lines product, an AI‑driven credit risk tool embedded in its AR workflow. It leverages a proprietary network of 13 million buyers and 25 years of B2B payment data to analyze payment history, utilization patterns, and external credit...
Embedding Security: Designing Fraud Risk Out of Business Transactions
Embedded finance is set to exceed $7 trillion in transaction volume by 2026, cementing its role as core infrastructure for business platforms. However, fraud attempts are rising two to three times faster than in traditional banking, outpacing legacy detection tools. The...
52% of Small Businesses Don’t Revolve Their Credit Card Balances
A PYMNTS Intelligence study of 583 U.S. small and medium‑sized businesses reveals that credit cards are now a primary operating tool rather than a backup. Over half of SMBs (54%) mix business and personal cards, 82% rely on cards for...
Tether Has Blocked $3.5 Billion in Crime-Linked Stablecoins Since 2023
Tether has frozen $3.5 billion of USDT linked to illicit activity since 2023, bringing the total frozen amount to $4.2 billion since the stablecoin’s launch. The company, which now has over $180 billion of USDT in circulation, can remotely lock tokens at law‑enforcement...
Morgan Stanley’s OCC Application Is Wall Street Colonizing Crypto’s Back Office
Morgan Stanley has filed an application with the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to create a new federally chartered entity, Morgan Stanley Digital Trust, National Association, under a national trust bank charter. The charter would focus on...
CFOs Capture B2B Payments Digitization Value by Targeting Year-Two Gap
Finance leaders face a “year-two problem” where B2B payments upgrades fail to deliver expected gains without refined data and processes. The article argues that execution velocity—how quickly firms turn standardized transactional data into actionable decisions—will be the decisive KPI. CFOs...
Senate’s AFFORD Act Seeks New Capital for Underserved Markets
The Senate introduced the Access to Fair Financing for Opportunity and Resilient Development (AFFORD) Act, aiming to strengthen the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund. The bill would let smaller CDFIs join the CDFI Bond Guarantee Program, reauthorize a liquidity‑enhancement...
Figure Doubles Consumer Loan Volume and Adds Auto Lending
Figure Technology Solutions reported a 131% year‑over‑year surge in its Consumer Loan Marketplace, reaching $2.7 billion in Q4 2025. More than half of that volume, $1.5 billion, flowed through its newly launched Figure Connect platform, marking a rapid shift toward a capital‑light...
OCC May Give Senators Warren and Scott Access to Trump Bank Application
The OCC’s comptroller, Jonathan Gould, indicated he will consider providing Senators Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott with the unredacted bank charter application of World Liberty Financial, a Trump‑family‑linked DeFi firm. The application, submitted in January, seeks a national trust bank...
Brink’s to Buy ATM Firm NCR Atleos in $6.6 Billion Infrastructure Bet
Brink’s announced a $6.6 billion cash‑and‑stock acquisition of NCR Atleos, aiming to create a leading financial‑technology infrastructure company. The deal, slated to close in the first quarter of 2027, merges Brink’s global cash‑management and route‑based network with Atleos’ owned ATM fleet...
Sam Altman’s World ID Wins Major Brand Partners
Tools for Humanity, the iris‑scanning startup co‑founded by Sam Altman, is rolling out its World ID platform with high‑profile brand partners. A Gap store in San Francisco now hosts an Orb device that captures facial and eye data, while Tinder...
Stars Align for Passkeys but Will Adoption Follow?
Credential‑based fraud and login friction are eroding conversion for high‑value e‑commerce shoppers, prompting merchants to seek stronger, lower‑friction authentication. Passkeys, built on FIDO public‑key cryptography and unlocked via biometrics or PIN, promise to eliminate password reuse and phishing risk. PayPal...
JPMorgan’s $20 Billion Tech Bet Could Shrink FinTech’s Innovation Edge
JPMorgan Chase disclosed a $19‑$20 billion annual technology budget, earmarked for AI, cloud infrastructure, and data integration. More than 80% of its applications now run on modern platforms, with over 70% in public or private clouds, enabling real‑time processing and automated...
RTP Network Marks Record 2 Million Transactions in a Day
The Clearing House’s Real‑Time Payments (RTP) network set two historic milestones, processing 2.05 million transactions in a single day on Feb. 13 and reaching a daily value peak of $8.36 billion on Feb. 18. The surge reflects accelerating adoption among retail users, digital‑wallet transfers,...
Truist Offers Crypto Trading to Private Wealth Clients
Truist’s private‑wealth division is now offering spot Bitcoin exchange‑traded funds from Fidelity and BlackRock, both SEC‑registered. The ETFs give high‑net‑worth clients regulated crypto exposure through advisors or the self‑directed Truist Trade platform. The launch follows regulatory clarity from the GENIUS...
Asia Pacific CFOs Push Banks to Rethink Working Capital, Study Finds
A Visa‑PYMNTS Working Capital Index shows nearly 50% of Asia‑Pacific growth‑stage firms (revenues $50 M‑$1 B) lack usable working‑capital tools, citing mismatched product design. CFOs demand flexible, sector‑specific digital financing, especially virtual and commercial cards that act as short‑term funding sources. High‑performing...
The Clearing House: Trust Is the Gatekeeper for What’s Next in Payments
The Clearing House’s chief strategy officer, Sal Karakaplan, declared “trust” the 2026 word of the year for payments, arguing it is the functional prerequisite for new players, technologies, and flows to gain lasting adoption. He highlighted the RTP® network’s expansion—now reaching...
Nearly Half of Shoppers Used Mobile for Their Latest Retail Purchase
The 2025 Global Digital Shopping Index, commissioned by Visa Acceptance Solutions, found that 48% of shoppers used a mobile device for their most recent retail purchase, with usage exceeding 60% in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Mobile browsing frequency is...
Open-Loop Systems Help Modernize Transit Payments
Transit agencies worldwide are replacing cash and paper tickets with contactless payments that use bank‑issued cards and mobile wallets, delivering a tap‑and‑pay experience identical to everyday purchases. Open‑loop systems route each tap through global payment networks, meeting sub‑300 ms response times...
Planned Purchases Rise as Financial Stress Eases, Study Finds
The PYMNTS Intelligence report finds that as financial stress eases, U.S. consumers are increasingly planning purchases rather than using credit spontaneously. Yet 42 % still doubt they will be approved for a new card, and 15 % experience denial while 43 % never...
Wellspring Debuts Treasury Management Tool for Small Businesses
Wellspring has launched Wellspring Institutional, a treasury management platform tailored for small and midsize businesses. The solution merges traditional banking APIs with regulated stablecoin settlement rails, delivering centralized cash visibility, domestic and cross‑border payments, and yield generation on idle balances....
First Citizens Seeks New Mergers to Cross Growth Threshold
First Citizens BancShares, sitting at $230 billion in assets, is actively scouting acquisitions to push past the $250 billion regulatory threshold that imposes stricter capital and reporting rules. The bank recently secured 138 BMO Bank branches across 11 states, adding a solid...
Earnings Season Made It Clear: Digitize Supply Chains or Fall Behind
Earnings season revealed that digitizing supply chains has shifted from a cost‑saving exercise to a strategic imperative. Executives at FedEx, Caterpillar, Dollar General and others highlighted upstream capex on supplier integration, AI‑enabled orchestration and real‑time visibility as growth enablers. The...
Worldline Scales One Commerce Across Europe to Support Cross-Border Sales
Worldline is rolling out its One Commerce omnichannel retail platform beyond the United Kingdom, showcasing it at the EuroShop trade fair in Germany from Feb. 22‑26. The solution lets merchants manage in‑store and online payments, integrate new payment methods, and...
Discover Network Shows How Sharing Data Can Turn the Tide on Fraud
Fraud is evolving into a fast‑moving, AI‑driven threat across e‑commerce, payments and identity, outpacing traditional, institution‑by‑institution defenses. Discover Network argues that sharing data through a consortium enables real‑time signal aggregation, tokenization and enhanced decisioning to spot patterns no single bank...
Middle-Market Confidence Splits in 2026 as Tariffs and Supply Chains Weigh on High-Uncertainty Firms
The 2026 Certainty Project surveyed CFOs of U.S. middle‑market firms (revenues $100 M‑$1 B) and found overall uncertainty stable, but a sharp split between goods and services sectors. Tariff policy shifts and supply‑chain exposure pushed high‑uncertainty among goods producers up 27% year‑over‑year,...
Everyone Has a Side Hustle Now. Not Everyone Has the Same Reason.
The Wage to Wallet Index reveals that roughly 60 million hourly workers earning $50,000 or less are turning to side work, with one in five performing regular gigs. While overall job‑security sentiment is rising, financial confidence is splitting: higher‑income salaried professionals...
Businesses Move to Rein In AI in the Shift to Autonomous Finance
Enterprises are granting AI agents authority to initiate payments, approve refunds, and orchestrate cross‑functional workflows, shifting from assistance to autonomous action. Security researchers warn that more than 1.5 million deployed agents could be exposed to misuse, expanding the attack surface faster...
Experience Economy Pushes Payments to $20B Super Bowl Test
The 2026 Super Bowl generated roughly $20.2 billion in experience‑economy spending, spanning tickets, merchandise, streaming and legal wagering. Paysafe’s CEO Bruce Lowthers highlighted the need for payment platforms that can process massive, real‑time transactions across multiple methods without friction. AI‑driven fraud...
As Tax Refunds Tackle Debt, Installment Payments Become a Budget Tool
Tax refunds rose 10.9% to an average $2,290, but tariffs on consumer goods have erased 70‑95% of their purchasing power for most households. The 2024 One Big Beautiful Bill Act expanded tax cuts, yet higher tariffs and price inflation offset...
Nearly Half of Digital Bank Customers Prefer Digital Wallets
A PYMNTS Intelligence survey of 2,071 U.S. bank customers finds that 44.6% of digital‑bank users prefer paying with digital wallets, outpacing other groups. When paired with discounts and clear buyer protection, 35.4% say they would shift account‑to‑account spending to pay‑by‑bank....