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March 9, 2026
On the web
Do Discounts Make an Impact at the In-Person Point of Sale?
Atlanta Federal Reserve
"Behavior patterns or habits, rooted in neuroscience, are often performed automatically. For example, when you approach a cashier at the grocery store, you may reach for your credit card without thinking. Is there anything that would persuade you to reach for your checkbook or debit card instead? If you're thinking that the incentives for making a change would need to be strong, you're not alone. In a recent analysis with Oz Shy and Joanna Stavins, stated preferences and inertia lead us to use our favored payment methods. Discounts or surcharges offered at the point of sale intended to influence us to use other payment methods may not overcome those habits. The analysis uses data from the 2024 Survey and Diary of Consumer Payment Choice."
Visa Intelligent Authorization Modernises Payment Processing for Banks and Financial Institutions, Unlocking ‘Era of Innovation’
Visa
"Visa announced the launch of Visa Intelligent Authorization, a new capability on the Visa Acceptance Platform that enables acquirers (banks and other financial institutions that process payments for merchants) to modernise their payment processing through a single API connection. Visa Intelligent Authorization helps address these challenges by providing a modern authorisation capability that can process transactions across major card networks through a single integration. The solution delivers 99.999% uptime1 and achieves an average approval rate of 96.3% globally, both industry‑leading benchmarks. It can be used as an acquirer’s main processor or as a complement to extend their capabilities."
Circle Moves $68 Million in Just 30 Minutes by Using Its Own Stablecoin for Internal Payments
Coin Desk
"Stablecoin issuer Circle settled $68 million across its eight entities using USDC, circumventing banking rails with transfers completing in under 30 minutes, CEO Jeremy Allaire said. The firm said the workflow replaces bank wires that typically take one to three days to clear. Broader product updates to Circle Mint aimed at multi-entity treasury operations are expected in March."
March 6, 2026
Top Post
OpenAI Drops Plan for Direct Checkout Inside ChatGPT
The Keyword
"OpenAI is halting plans to support direct product checkout inside ChatGPT, according to The Information. The report says low buying activity inside ChatGPT is a major reason for the change. Internal findings suggest users often search for products but rarely complete purchases in ChatGPT. Technical hurdles, such as real-time product data synchronization across millions of retailers, made in-chat purchases difficult to scale. Fraud prevention further complicated efforts to run a full e-commerce checkout directly inside ChatGPT."
On the web
Mastercard Conducts First Live Agentic Transaction in Malaysia with CIMB, Maybank and RHB Pilot
Mastercard
"Mastercard announced the completion of a pilot that delivered its first authenticated agentic transactions in Malaysia, marking a major step forward for trusted AI‑powered commerce. The pilot was conducted with CIMB Group Holdings Berhad, Malayan Banking Berhad and RHB Banking Group using Mastercard Agent Pay and was initiated by AI agents in a controlled pilot environment, ensuring security, transparency and full consumer control. The pilot demonstrated how AI can support consumers to complete everyday tasks — such as transportation — securely and seamlessly."
PPRO and PayPal Enable Swish Payments for Global eCommerce
IBS Intelligence
"PPRO has partnered with PayPal to enable Swedish mobile payment service Swish on PayPal’s platform, allowing millions of Swedish consumers to use their preferred domestic payment method when shopping with international online merchants. The integration connects Swish’s user base of around 8.7 million people to PayPal’s global merchant network, enabling them to pay at thousands of online stores worldwide using a payment method already widely adopted in Sweden."
March 5, 2026
On the web
Splitit Backs Google's Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), Advancing Agentic Commerce with Card-Linked Installments
Yahoo Finance-Cision
"Splitit, the global leader in card-linked installment payments, announced its backing of Google's Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard that provides the building blocks for agentic commerce, enabling AI agents to complete purchases on behalf of consumers. Built with Shopify, Target, Walmart, Etsy, and Wayfair, and endorsed by dozens of major players, UCP is designed to support the entire shopping journey, from discovery to checkout and post-purchase experiences."
Finastra Launches AI-Based OperatorAssist to Transform How Banks Address Payments Handling
Finastra
"Finastra announced the launch of OperatorAssist, an AI-powered solution that is available to add to its payment hub user interface, designed to reduce errors, speed exception handling, and lower operational costs across the payments lifecycle."
Nacha’s Top 50 ACH Originators and Receivers of 2025 Now Available; Total ACH Payment Volume in 2025 Exceeded 42 Billion
Nacha
"The Nacha Top 50 rankings of financial institution originators and receivers of ACH payments for 2025 are now available. Among originating financial institutions, the Top 50 handled ACH volume of 30.7 billion payments last year, up 4.7% from 2024. They accounted for 91.4% of the ACH Network’s total commercial payments volume. The Top 50 receiving institutions had ACH payment volume of 23 billion, an increase of 6.4% over 2024. These institutions accounted for 65.1% of total volume on the ACH Network, inclusive of payments received from the federal government."
Revolut Files for US Bank Charter, Names Duransoy as US CEO
Yahoo Finance
"Britain's Revolut applied for a U.S. bank charter and appointed former Visa executive Cetin Duransoy as its new CEO for the United States, the fintech company announced. Revolut, which has about 70 million clients in 40 markets, is setting its sights on the lucrative U.S. market. If its applications are approved by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Revolut plans to broaden its U.S. business to gather deposits, make loans, issue credit cards and facilitate payments."
BNY and SWIFT Launch Blockchain Ledger
Banking Exchange
"BNY has partnered with global financial messaging network SWIFT to develop a blockchain-based ledger designed to enhance cross-border payments and support the settlement of tokenized assets. Rather than replacing existing systems, the initiative will focus on building an interoperable layer designed to complement SWIFT’s established global messaging network."
Santander and Mastercard Complete Europe’s First Live End-To-End Payment Executed by an AI Agent
Santander
"Banco Santander and Mastercard announced the successful completion of Europe’s first live end-to-end payment executed by an artificial intelligence (AI) agent, representing the first agentic payment carried out within a regulated banking framework and marking a significant milestone in the application of AI systems capable of initiating and completing transactions on behalf of customers. Santander carried out the transaction in a controlled environment using Mastercard Agent Pay."
ACI Worldwide Launches Card Payments on Cloud-Native ACI Connetic, Advancing Unified Payments Platform
ACI Worldwide
ACI Worldwide announced the launch of ACI Connetic for Cards, a next generation, fully integrated, modernized card payments suite within ACI Connetic, the industry’s first unified cloud-native payments hub, bringing together account-to-account (A2A), card payments and AI-driven fraud prevention on one platform.
March 4, 2026
Top Post
Drew Edmond Named Partner at Glenbrook
PR Newswire
"Glenbrook Partners, a leading strategy consulting firm focused exclusively on the payments industry, is pleased to announce the promotion of Drew Edmond to Partner. Drew joined Glenbrook in 2018 and has been instrumental in advising leading merchants, payment providers, and financial institutions on optimizing payments performance and navigating ongoing change across the payments ecosystem."
On the web
Google Requires Structured Product Data for UCP Checkout
The Keyword
"Google has published an official help document explaining the Universal Commerce Protocol and how it supports commerce interactions on Google surfaces. Google’s documentation makes it clear that the Universal Commerce Protocol is an open standard that defines how agents can interact with merchants programmatically. This includes product discovery, comparisons, capability negotiation, checkout initiation, and post-purchase flows."
Capital One Begins Originating Select Credit Cards on Discover Network
The Street
"In a statement made to TheStreet, a Capital One company spokesperson confirmed that the company had “started” originating select credit cards on the Discover Network. The word “originating” is the key word here; it implies that new customers will receive a Venture, Savor, Quicksilver, VentureOne, SavorOne, or Quicksilver Discover card. However, existing cardholders likely won’t be affected until their card expires, at which point the expiring cards might replace their old Visa or Mastercard-issued one."
Affirm And Stripe Link AI Agents To Buy Now Pay Later Growth
Yahoo Finance
"Affirm Holdings has expanded its work with Stripe to support Shared Payment Tokens for buy now, pay later transactions. The update allows AI agents to initiate secure pay over time purchases without sharing full card or account credentials. Affirm is also connecting its services to emerging agent driven commerce platforms that can shop and check out on behalf of users."
Stripe Wants to Turn Your AI Costs Into a Profit Center
TechCrunch
"Stripe released a preview of a new feature that could help AI startups (and other companies) solve the problem of passing through the underlying costs of AI model usage to their customers. Stripe’s feature, however, goes even further than just passing through the costs of the tokens. It allows startups to charge a markup percentage on token usage. So a company can, for instance, charge an automatic 30% above the cost of the tokens that the startup will pay the model maker."
On the wires
Spreedly Makes Agentic Commerce a Live Channel for Merchants
PR Newswire
"AI agents have advanced from recommending products to completing purchases at checkout. Spreedly announced that agentic commerce is now live as a channel within its open payments platform, enabling merchants to process agent-initiated transactions over their existing payment infrastructure. Spreedly enables agent-initiated transactions to flow through existing payment service provider (PSP) relationships while merchants remain the merchant of record and routing logic stays intact."
Pagos Transforms Payments Data From Harmonized to AI-Ready
PR Newswire
"Pagos, an AI-powered payments intelligence leader, unveils a powerful payments data platform, offering enterprise merchants a single, enriched data foundation to power analytics, optimization, and agentic workflows."
March 3, 2026
On the web
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon Slams Stablecoin Yield Demands: 'The Public Will Pay'
Decrypt
"JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said if crypto firms want to offer stablecoin rewards, then they should become banks. White House-led talks between banking and crypto leaders have so far failed to produce a compromise on the issue. The impasse has stalled crypto's coveted market structure bill. That bill, hotly desired by most of the crypto industry, was poised to be voted on by the powerful Senate Banking Committee in January. But on the eve of the vote, Coinbase abruptly pulled support for the legislation, citing the likelihood that senators would approve amendments to the bill restricting stablecoin rewards programs."
Supporting Additional Payment Methods for Agentic Commerce
Stripe
"Last year, we launched Shared Payment Tokens (SPTs), a payment primitive for agentic commerce that lets agents initiate payments with a customer’s permission and preferred payment method, without exposing the underlying credentials. We’re expanding SPT support to enable broader access to network-led agentic payment capabilities, including Mastercard Agent Pay and Visa Intelligent Commerce, as well as buy now, pay later (BNPL) methods such as Affirm and Klarna. This makes Stripe the first and only provider that supports both agentic network tokens and BNPL tokens in agentic commerce through a single primitive."
Modulr Partners With Hibob to Enhance Pay Day Experience for Customers
Modulr Finance
"Modulr announced a new partnership with AI powered HR, Finance and Payroll platform, HiBob. The partnership will see HiBob deploy Modulr’s payments automation directly into its payroll workflow, reducing the administrative burden and improving the pay day experience for customers. By deploying Modulr’s payments automation directly into HiBob’s payroll workflow, HiBob customers will now gain access to a single, reliable process that improves operational efficiency, accuracy, and control from approval through to pay day."
Klarna Expands Further Into Agentic Commerce, Offering Flexible Payments to Merchants via Stripe's Shared Payment Tokens
Business Wire
"Klarna announced that its flexible payment options will soon be supported in AI agent-driven shopping experiences through Stripe’s Shared Payment Tokens (SPTs), making Klarna available in AI-powered checkout flows for US merchants already live with Klarna through Stripe, provided AI shopping agents allow the ability to offer flexible payments at checkout. The integration addresses a growing gap in agentic commerce: AI shopping agents have been defaulting to card-on-file payments by design, effectively freezing out alternative payment methods, including BNPL, from automated checkout flows."
Ripple Redefines Payments with End-to-End Stablecoin Platform and Global Customer Momentum
Ripple
"Ripple is redefining the payment journey for global money movement – removing the need to stitch together multiple, disjointed solutions across vendors, regions and timezones. Leveraging recent acquisitions of Palisade (custody and treasury automation) and Rail (virtual accounts and collections), Ripple’s solution now allows customers to collect, hold, exchange and payout in both fiat and stablecoins — including the ability to provision named virtual accounts and wallets, automate collection flows, exchange and settle funds into operational accounts within a single unified platform."
AvidXchange Announces Embedded Supplier Payment Automation Solution for the AppFolio
AvidXchange
"AvidXchange Inc. announced the launch of its Accounts Payable as a Service solution for AppFolio customers, further expanding the partnership between the two companies and making AvidXchange’s payment automation solution available in the AppFolio StackTM Marketplace. AvidXchange’s Accounts Payable as a Service is a fully managed, embedded solution that enables accounting systems and ERP providers to offer the ability for their customers to execute payments directly within their platforms."
Worldline Completes Its First Wero Online Payment With the Red Cross in Belgium
Worldline
"Worldline has enabled its first Wero online payment transaction in Belgium, the second European nation to enable eCommerce payments after Germany. This historic moment was done for the Belgian Red Cross-Flanders (Rode Kruis-Vlaanderen) following the announcement of Wero’s eCommerce launch in the country."
From Cash to Crypto: Towards a Consistent Regulatory Approach to Illicit Payments
BIS
"The rapid evolution of cryptoassets, including stablecoins, and retail central bank digital currency (CBDC) has led to changes in regulatory frameworks to incorporate them. The options beyond bank deposits and cash calls for an analysis of the effectiveness of anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism regimes across different payment instruments. This paper introduces a framework to assess the effects of AML/CFT frameworks, with a focus on differences in design between instruments, and the role of intermediaries."
UK Fintech Firm Revolut Opens India Waitlist for Digital Payments
Tech In Asia
"Revolut will launch an INR-only prepaid wallet with UPI integration and Visa cards for domestic and international use. The wallet will support peer-to-peer transfers, merchant payments, budgeting tools, and UPI transfers via QR codes, phone numbers, and contacts, subject to NPCI limits, plus recurring payments and biometric authentication."
Visa and Bridge Expand Collaboration, with Plans to Bring Stablecoin-Linked Cards to Over 100 Countries
Visa
Visa and Bridge, a leading stablecoin infrastructure platform and a Stripe company, announced an expansion of their global card issuance product that they first unveiled in 2025. Bridge enables businesses and fintech developers to offer stablecoin-backed Visa cards. Now, through Bridge’s partnership with Lead Bank, these card transactions can be settled onchain with Visa.
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