Visa and FIS have deepened their partnership to introduce a suite of enhanced payment features aimed at empowering financial institutions of all sizes.
Announced on Thursday (June 26), the expanded offerings include stop payment services that allow cardholders and call centers to block recurring charges, as well as a wallet integration feature to streamline the addition of branded digital cards into consumers’ wallets. The companies are also rolling out advanced fraud mitigation tools designed to improve eCommerce approval rates and reduce chargeback liabilities stemming from fraudulent transactions.
Additionally, the duo will launch a digital campaign manager to support banks in exploring new marketing avenues, such as augmented reality events and immersive digital experiences.
These solutions are expected to be available to FIS client issuers by year-end.
Chris Como, Head of Cards and Money Movement at FIS, emphasized the goal of equipping smaller institutions with tools that rival those of larger banks. “By integrating Visa’s innovations into our platform, we’re helping smaller providers compete more effectively and expand access to modern financial technology,” he said.
Kathleen Pierce-Gilmore, SVP and Global Head of Visa Issuing Solutions, echoed this sentiment, highlighting the collaboration’s role in helping institutions retain customers and accelerate growth.
The announcement aligns with findings from the PYMNTS Intelligence report, which notes that Gen Z and millennial customers are leaning toward community banks and credit unions that offer personalized service and strong digital capabilities.
Separately, earlier this month, FIS revealed a partnership with Episode Six to launch a cloud-native platform aimed at modernizing card-issuing infrastructure for financial institutions.
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News Source: Pymnts.com
Remark, a pioneer in building AI-powered product experts for online commerce, has raised $16 million in Series A funding led by Inspired Capital, with support from Stripe, Neo, Spero Ventures, Shine Capital, and Visible Ventures. This round brings the company’s total funding to $27 million.
Despite major investments in e-commerce, digital platforms have long struggled to replicate the impact of knowledgeable in-store sales associates. Remark is addressing this gap by creating AI personas trained on insights from over 60,000 real-world experts, including Olympic athletes, estheticians, stylists, and parents. These digital advisors, embedded directly into brand websites, offer tailored product guidance that increases conversions, boosts order values, and reduces return rates.
Unlike generic chatbots, Remark’s AI mirrors the tone, knowledge, and lived experiences of actual specialists, delivering warm and reliable product advice at scale. “AI should enhance the human experience — not replace it,” said Theo Satloff, CEO and co-founder. “We’re bringing back trusted guidance into online shopping by training our AI on real product experts.”
Since its last funding round, Remark has seen 4x revenue growth, 100% customer retention across more than 60 partner brands, and nearly 130% net dollar retention. The platform has helped its clients generate tens of millions in new revenue, with an average 10% uplift in sales and 28% shopper conversion rate — far above the industry norm of 1%. Remark has also saved brands over $3.2 million in support costs by reducing customer service load through smarter, expert-driven recommendations.
“Remark is creating a new category in commerce — one that fuses genuine human expertise with AI scalability,” said Kamran Ali, Principal at Inspired Capital. “Their model is showing clear ROI and redefining customer interaction.”
With fresh capital in hand, Remark plans to expand into new sectors, broaden its expert network, and enhance its training, analytics, and deployment capabilities. The company is also building faster, more adaptive systems to help brands roll out AI personas quickly and track performance in real time.
As categories like health, fashion, beauty, and outdoor gear demand higher personalization, Remark aims to empower merchants with AI that feels less robotic and more like a trusted in-store guide.
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News Source: Businesswire.com
Seward & Kissel LLP’s latest Seed Transaction Deal Points study highlights a notable shift in seed investment trends, signaling increased investor interest in illiquid strategies such as private equity and private credit—moving away from traditional hedge funds and liquid products.
The 11th annual edition of the study indicates that institutional investors continue to dominate seeding activity, driving up median investment sizes and influencing the evolution of deal structures. These deals now show a stronger emphasis on alignment among managers, seeders, and third-party investors.
“This change is fueling innovation in seed deal terms,” said Gary Anderson, Partner at Seward & Kissel and lead author of the report. “We anticipate this trend to intensify, with private markets likely to surpass hedge funds in terms of seeding volume.”
The findings point to increasing flexibility and creativity in deal structures, with seeders embracing shared start-up costs, investor-aligned liquidity terms, and long-term support frameworks. These dynamics underscore a maturing market focused on sustainability, risk management, and strategic alignment.
Key highlights from the 2024 report include:
- Innovative Deal Terms: Illiquid structures are prompting greater diversity and customization in agreements.
- Manager Incentives: Structured deals are rewarding long-term commitment and strategic growth.
- Focus on Risk and Alignment: Investors are prioritizing collaborative terms to manage market volatility and ensure stable partnerships.
The full study is available for download, and Gary Anderson is open to media discussions regarding the insights and implications of the findings.
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News Source: Businesswire.com
Balance, a leading AI-driven B2B payment platform, has teamed up with Alibaba.com to launch an embedded financing solution, ‘Pay Later for Business,’ aimed at empowering small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the U.S.
With this integration, Alibaba.com’s U.S. business buyers can now choose Balance as a payment method during checkout, enabling qualified users to access instant credit and defer payments—an essential tool in managing cash flow and expanding purchasing power.
The solution leverages Balance’s advanced AI risk engine to deliver real-time credit assessments and high approval rates, even for SMEs often excluded from traditional financial services.
“Business buyers need flexibility to grow,” said Yiran Li, Head of Customer Retention Strategy at Alibaba.com U.S. “By embedding Balance into our checkout, we’re helping customers pay on their terms.”
Bar Geron, CEO and Co-founder of Balance, emphasized the significance of access to credit in today’s economic climate: “Especially with rising tariffs, having financial flexibility can be the difference between surviving and thriving.”
This partnership follows Balance’s recent integration with Instacart Business, further expanding its reach across major B2B platforms. By embedding solutions like Buy Now, Pay Later and automated invoice payments directly into checkout, Balance enables platforms to increase order values, boost conversions, and improve customer retention—without added credit risk or operational burden.
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News Source: Businesswire.com
Republic has launched its first Mirror Token — rSpaceX — giving retail investors across the globe access to the financial upside of private giants like SpaceX, starting at just $50.
In a move set to reshape private market investing, Republic has unveiled Mirror Tokens, a new class of digital assets designed to mirror the economic performance of the world’s top private companies. The debut token, rSpaceX, offers exposure to SpaceX’s valuation growth — without requiring accreditation or large capital.
For the first time, non-accredited investors worldwide can participate in the potential upside of iconic private companies such as SpaceX, Figma, and Anthropic. Built on Solana’s blockchain, rSpaceX does not confer ownership or equity in SpaceX but reflects the company’s financial trajectory, particularly in events like IPOs or acquisitions.
Historically, U.S. regulations have excluded over 99% of individuals from investing in high-growth private companies. Republic aims to change that by leveraging nearly a decade of fintech experience and its regulatory framework to offer broader access.
The tokens are priced using publicly available transaction data, and Republic plans to enable secondary trading post-lockup via a regulated exchange, pending its acquisition of INX. Purchases are initially capped at $5,000 to allow for wider participation and test the scalability of tokenized access.
“This is a major milestone in making private markets more accessible and liquid globally,” said Kendrick Nguyen, Founder of Republic. “By merging compliance and blockchain, we’re enabling anyone to invest in tomorrow’s game-changers.”
Republic’s Mirror Token roadmap includes future offerings tied to other high-profile companies such as xAI, Ramp, Perplexity, Cursor, and more — signaling a broader mission to democratize access to private equity through tokenization.
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News Source: Businesswire.com
Zafin, a trusted platform partner for global banks, has rolled out its latest capability—Transaction Enrichment—designed to turn raw transaction data into actionable insights. This launch marks a strategic step in helping financial institutions deliver deeper personalization, enhance engagement, and modernize loyalty programs.
Built into Zafin’s modular platform, Transaction Enrichment empowers banks to offer tailored customer experiences without overhauling existing systems. By converting basic data into categorized, contextual insights, banks can better align products, pricing, and rewards with user behavior.
The tool is already live at Commercial Bank International (CBI) in the UAE, where it is helping customers gain a clearer view of their spending patterns. “Enhancing our transaction data has helped us deliver a more intuitive digital experience,” said Giovanni Gavino Everduin, CBI’s Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer. “It’s a step toward deeper personalization and everyday loyalty.”
Zafin CEO Charbel Safadi emphasized that this innovation extends beyond data analysis. “It allows banks to engage customers in meaningful ways, tied to their daily financial behaviors and goals,” he said. “This is essential for the future of relationship banking.”
Fully integrated with Zafin’s AI-powered platform, Transaction Enrichment supports banks in creating smarter, behavior-driven loyalty strategies—without adding complexity to their core systems.
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News Source: Businesswire.com
Klarna, the global payments and Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) giant, is stepping into the telecom sector with the launch of an unlimited mobile plan in the United States.
Announced on June 18, Klarna revealed that the new offering will debut in the U.S. in the coming weeks, followed by rollouts in the U.K., Germany, and additional markets. The move aligns with Klarna’s broader strategy to evolve its services into a full-fledged neobank experience.
“For over two decades, Klarna has helped consumers save money and reduce financial stress,” said Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Klarna’s CEO and co-founder. “With our mobile plan, we’re simplifying connectivity — no hidden charges, no paperwork, just a seamless, affordable experience through the Klarna app.”
Targeting customer pain points, Klarna cited research indicating that over half of U.S. consumers find switching mobile plans burdensome. With its new service, users can transfer or request a new number and activate the plan directly within the Klarna app — eliminating the need for store visits or customer service calls.
The mobile plan, built in partnership with telecom platform Gigs, will offer unlimited 5G data, calls, and texts for $40 per month, using AT&T’s network infrastructure.
“Klarna is reshaping the future of mobile connectivity by merging telecom with financial services,” said Hermann Frank, Gigs’ CEO and co-founder. “This integration creates a frictionless mobile experience backed by the Klarna ecosystem.”
With this move, Klarna joins a growing list of FinTechs expanding into telecom. Revolut introduced its mobile services earlier this year, while Brazil’s Nubank launched “Nucel” in 2023.
This convergence trend is gaining momentum, as digital banks blur the lines between financial services and telecommunications. According to PYMNTS research, this shift reflects the global integration of mobile devices and financial technologies, with over 4.3 billion smartphone users — and a vast untapped market of 3.4 billion people still to reach.
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News Source: Pymnts.com
FinTech giant Revolut is actively preparing to launch an artificial intelligence (AI) financial assistant, aiming to enhance consumers’ financial decision-making. Revolut’s U.K. CEO, Francesca Carlesi, confirmed at a Bloomberg New Voices event in Milan that the AI assistant “will go live shortly.”
This initiative aligns with Revolut’s previously stated 2025 goals, which prioritize integrating more AI tools to support its growing customer base. In November, Revolut’s co-founders first revealed plans for this AI-powered companion, outlining their product vision for the coming year.
A press release from the company detailed the assistant’s capabilities: “Revolut’s financial companion will adapt to customers’ needs and preferences in-app, guiding them towards smarter money habits, enhanced financial decision-making and streamlined admin.” The company also indicated a “gradual rollout” throughout 2025, anticipating the evolving potential of AI in personal finance.
Revolut recently announced a significant expansion in its user base, reaching 52.5 million customers by April after adding nearly 15 million in 2024. This marks the largest annual increase in the company’s nine-year history. Revolut Founder and CEO Nik Storonsky stated in an April 24 earnings release, “we’re just getting started,” setting an ambitious goal of 100 million daily users across 100 countries.
This move by Revolut reflects a broader consumer demand for AI-driven experiences. A PYMNTS Intelligence report, “Getting to Know You: How AI is Shaping the Future of Shopping,” highlighted that 51% of consumers are interested in AI features, with demand particularly strong among younger and higher-income shoppers, who seek convenience, customization, and efficiency. Other companies are also embracing AI; Walmart introduced a new generative AI shopping assistant on June 6, and Square launched a conversational AI assistant on June 3 to assist sellers with their business technology platform.
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News Source: Pymnts.com
ideal-finance.com establishes a new industry benchmark by fully launching its next-generation, in-house developed trading system. This move significantly advances foundational financial technology and positions the company as a leader in rapid fintech globalization.
The platform built this innovative system using high-performance languages like Golang and Rust. It introduces the industry’s first fully cloud-native architecture for financial trading engines, ensuring high availability, ultra-low latency, and infinite scalability.
Since its inception, ideal-finance.com has championed “technology-driven finance.” The newly deployed system features over 60 global data nodes spanning North America, Southeast Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. This extensive network achieves true global multi-zone load balancing and high data availability. A cloud-native container orchestration system allows for real-time elastic scaling and automatic disaster recovery, guaranteeing stable, 7×24 “zero downtime” trading services even during extreme market volatility.
Company test results reveal that ideal-finance.com’s trading matching system achieves an average order delay of just 9.3 milliseconds. It processes over 20,000 transaction requests per second, leading the global financial platform landscape. Furthermore, the platform’s self-developed algorithmic trading system supports diverse complex strategies, including market, limit, take-profit, stop-loss, conditional trigger, and tiered batch orders, making it ideal for institutional users, quantitative teams, and high-frequency traders.
Notably, ideal-finance.com’s comprehensive system features a multi-chain compatible architecture, providing native access to smart contracts and enabling bidirectional interaction with major blockchain systems like Ethereum, Solana, and BNB Chain. The platform also integrates advanced in-memory computing architecture and AI risk control modules. These features facilitate real-time monitoring of trading anomalies, price fluctuations, and suspicious account behaviors, boosting overall system security and transaction transparency.
Beyond its trading engine, ideal-finance.com has independently developed data analysis layers, clearing and settlement modules, fund custody systems, and cross-border compliance risk control platforms. This creates a complete closed-loop financial technology ecosystem covering “trading-clearing-regulation-risk control,” enhancing the platform’s responsiveness and control while offering a more user-friendly compliance interface for global financial regulatory agencies.
A platform representative emphasizes that as the global digital asset market matures, trading platforms with fully autonomous technology systems will become crucial for industry progress. ideal-finance.com plans to increase its technology investments, ensuring security and stability while continually optimizing the user trading experience. This provides a strong technological foundation for global high-net-worth users, institutional clients, and compliant funds.
ideal-finance.com has already established technical integration mechanisms with regulatory bodies in multiple countries. The platform supports trading for over 300 financial assets, including cryptocurrencies, contract products, U.S. stocks, Hong Kong stocks, ETFs, and funds. With its self-developed systems, global deployment capabilities, and continuously improved user experience, ideal-finance.com is steadily progressing towards becoming a top-tier global fintech platform.
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News Source: Globenewswire.com
PayPal’s General Manager of Consumer Group, Diego Scotti, asserts that the company is intensifying its focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven personalization. This strategic move aims to maintain its competitive edge in the evolving digital payments landscape. Speaking at the Viva Tech 2025 conference in Paris, Scotti emphasized, “AI is changing commerce as we speak.”
Scotti detailed how PayPal adapts to the era of AI agents and increasing competition, highlighting a recent collaboration with AI search engine Perplexity. Announced in May, this partnership positions PayPal as the embedded payment option for Perplexity’s new shopping features. Scotti explained, “We are going to become the enabler of their AI commerce through PayPal, because of the data that we have” on consumers.
When users input queries into Perplexity, they will receive not only answers but also product pages tailored to their individual profiles, based on PayPal’s consumer data. An AI agent will then facilitate the entire transaction. Scotti elaborated, “We’re not going to give you a bunch of links. We’re going to give you a nice list of recommendations of products that fit your profile…then you’re going to be able to shop for them right there on the agent.” This vision reflects PayPal’s broader goal of powering seamless, AI-driven transactions that operate silently in the background, continuously learning and adapting to consumer preferences.
Scotti acknowledged the dramatic shift in the payments landscape since PayPal pioneered online checkout 25 years ago. He noted the explosion of choices, from Apple Pay to various bank apps and FinTech wallets, which compels PayPal to actively earn consumer attention and loyalty with each transaction. “We need the consumer to make the choice every day…to use PayPal,” Scotti stated. As rivals enter PayPal’s digital payments domain, the company expands by integrating into physical store checkout systems and offering diverse perks like deferred payments and cryptocurrency options.
PayPal views banks, credit card companies, and digital payment platforms like Apple Pay as both competitors and partners, shaping its platform-agnostic strategy. Scotti highlighted PayPal’s extensive user base, calling it “the biggest installed app base in the world of any financial services company.”
Scotti identifies trust and data as critical pillars for the new era of digital commerce, especially as AI drives purchasing decisions. He believes PayPal holds a significant advantage in these areas, particularly in trust. He explained that PayPal possesses granular data, down to the SKU level, detailing individual purchases. This contrasts with banks or credit card networks, which might only know a customer visited a store and spent a certain amount. PayPal’s detailed insights enable smart receipts and highly personalized product recommendations.
Scotti also shared ambitious plans for Venmo, PayPal’s peer-to-peer payments brand, which has evolved into a social network for financial transactions among 100 million U.S. users aged 18 to 29. Looking ahead, PayPal aims to expand Venmo’s utility, allowing users to spend their Venmo balance in stores, online, or with crypto or credit cards. “We’re building this ecosystem that is very exciting. We are monetizing it. It’s a great driver of growth,” Scotti affirmed.
Scotti concluded that PayPal’s future success hinges on its ability to combine AI, consumer insights, and global infrastructure to redefine the digital wallet and marketing platform. He stated, “we’re going to do it again,” referring to PayPal’s pioneering role in digital payments a quarter-century ago.
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News Source: Pymnts.com
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman disclosed that Meta offered $100 million bonuses to recruit his employees, a move highlighting the tech giant’s aggressive artificial intelligence strategy. These alleged recruitment attempts underscore the intense drive to secure top AI engineers as the Facebook owner works to establish its superintelligence unit and gain ground on rivals.
The battle for AI talent is at a fever pitch; companies now court star researchers like professional athletes, believing individual contributions can determine success or failure. “They (Meta) started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” Altman stated on his brother’s Uncapped podcast, which aired Tuesday. He added, “You know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that (in) compensation per year.” Altman affirmed, “At least, so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that.”
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours; Reuters could not verify the information. “I’ve heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor,” Altman remarked.
Altman’s comments follow Meta’s recent $14.3 billion investment in data-labeling startup Scale AI and its hiring of Scale AI’s top boss, Alexandr Wang, to lead its new superintelligence team. While Meta once led in open-source AI models, it has recently experienced staff departures and delayed new open-source AI model launches that could compete with rivals like Google, China’s DeepSeek, and OpenAI.
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News Source: Finance.yahoo.com
Peymo, a UK-based FinTech, just launched an innovative artificial intelligence-powered digital finance platform. This new system seamlessly integrates traditional fiat banking with cryptocurrency wallets, tokenized assets, and embedded finance solutions.
The company labels its creation an “AI-powered multi-hybrid bank,” providing users with comprehensive management of British pounds, euros, and various crypto assets, along with branded debit cards. Enterprises also gain access to full banking functionalities through robust APIs.
Tomas Bartos, Peymo’s founder, stated, “By fusing AI, fiat, crypto, and embedded finance into a single stack, we’re delivering the next generation of banking — and it’s ready today.”
The platform boasts a voice-first interface for hands-free banking, along with AI agents that monitor user behavior, track market activity, optimize payments, and protect assets. Additionally, AI tools empower users to navigate their entire portfolio, including crypto, fiat, gold, and tokenized assets.
Peymo is actively engaging with partners, early adopters, and regulatory stakeholders to expand its infrastructure globally. In a July 2024 LinkedIn post, Peymo invited investors to join its “transformative journey in the financial landscape,” highlighting a strategic client acquisition approach that includes acquiring large client databases, embedding finance solutions with online businesses, and implementing a paygateway system. This strategy aims to rapidly expand Peymo’s user base and demonstrate its growth potential in the competitive market.
This launch comes as mobile banking apps continue to be the preferred method for many customers, especially among millennials, Generation Z, and Generation X. A PYMNTS Intelligence report, “Why Digital-First Banking Does Not Mean Digital-Only,” notes that demand for improved service and personalized experiences drives customers to switch banks. Research from Salesforce, cited in the report, indicates that over half of customers who switched banks last year did so seeking better digital experiences, while 39% looked for enhanced customer service.
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News Source: Pymnts.com
