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A leading payments industry news source for more than 17 years. Glenbrook curates the news and keeps you abreast of the important daily headlines in payments.
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April 17, 2026
On the web
EBANX Adds New Markets, Targets Asia Growth
IBS Intelligence
"Ebanx is expanding its global footprint by adding Thailand, Indonesia and Turkey to its payments network, while preparing to enter Malaysia and Vietnam in the next quarter. The move marks a further step in the company’s strategy to strengthen its presence in Southeast Asia and other emerging markets. Ebanx connects global merchants with local payment methods, helping companies operate in regions where card usage remains limited."
Financial Data Exchange Launches Initiative Promoting Safe Financial Data Sharing With Agentic AI
Open Banking Expo
"The Financial Data Exchange is launching a new initiative to promote safety and innovation when AI agents are used by consumers and companies to transmit sensitive financial account data. FDX is putting out a Call for Input to solicit stakeholder feedback on questions related to Agentic AI and its implications for data sharing. In tandem, FDX is releasing an Exploration Brief, which presents an initial framing of how agentic AI is being used in user-permissioned financial data sharing, the potential implications, and new problem areas to be solved."
Nearly Half of BNPL Users Have Paid Late in the Past Year, up for a Second Straight Year
LendingTree
"Nearly half of buy now, pay later users say they’ve paid late on a BNPL loan in the past year. 47% of users say they’ve paid late in the past year, up from 41% in 2025 and 34% in 2024. (Another 15% say they’ve paid late before, but not in the past year.) However, 72% of late payers say their most recent late payment was no more than a week or so late."
April 16, 2026
Top Post
Early Warning Sharpens Financial Fraud Intelligence with Certos
Early Warning
"Early Warning Services LLC, the company behind Zelle® and the Paze® digital wallet, announced the launch of CertosSM, a unified brand portfolio of its fraud and identity risk solutions that help financial institutions stop fraud and expand financial access in the U.S. banking system. “Building on Early Warning’s proven scale, Certos brings together decades of trusted fraud prevention capabilities under a unified brand with a critical role in protecting financial trust and expanding financial inclusion,” said Andrea Gilman, chief marking officer of Early Warning."
On the web
Charles Schwab Announces Details of Spot Crypto Trading Launch
Charles Schwab
"Charles Schwab announced Schwab Crypto™, a spot crypto trading offer that will begin a phased rollout to retail clients in the coming weeks. Schwab Crypto will provide direct access to bitcoin and ethereum trading, combined with educational content and experienced professional support all at a great value. At launch, Schwab Crypto will include direct trading in bitcoin and ethereum, two of the most well-known and established cryptocurrencies, which together represent approximately three-quarters of the crypto market capitalization.....:"
CPI and Fiserv Forge Major Alliance to Modernize Instant Issuance Experience for Financial Institutions
CPI Card Group
"CPI Card Group Inc. and Fiserv announced an alliance that brings advanced instant issuance capabilities to Fiserv’s bank and credit union customers through CPI’s market-leading software-as-service, Card@Once. CPI is advancing a unified payments issuance strategy, expanding its proprietary technology platform that combines digital and physical card offerings through technology integrations, allowing financial institutions to easily access solutions through their preferred core or payment processing providers."
American Express to Acquire Hyper, Adding to Its AI Expertise and Expense Management Capabilities
American Express
"American Express announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Hypercard (Hyper), an agentic expense management company, adding to Amex’s AI expertise and capabilities across its commercial services business. Hyper’s team of AI experts will help American Express continue to build agentic tools and AI-powered solutions that help businesses automate processes and simplify operations."
Earn on Stablecoin Balances: Fireblocks Launches Native Yield Offerings
Fireblocks
"Fireblocks is launching Earn, a new feature that provides native access to onchain lending directly within the platform. This allows customers to potentially earn yield by supplying their stablecoin balances to lend-borrow markets and curated strategies. This new capability is seamlessly integrated into the Fireblocks platform, offering customers the same reliable experience they expect, including familiar approval workflows, transaction signing, and position tracking."
Blackhawk Network Launches Comprehensive Stored Value Platform for Consumer Engagement
Business Wire
"Global branded payments leader Blackhawk Network announced a new platform that helps brands modernize how they manage and deliver stored value. The platform enables brands to bring together existing sources of value—gift cards, refunds, promotional dollars, loyalty rewards and appeasements—into a single, consumer-facing balance. This creates a more seamless experience for consumers while BHN handles the complex accounting, compliance and expiration rules that vary across different balance types."
Euronet Expands Omnichannel Payment Solutions with Strategic Acquisition of PaynoPain
Euronet
"Euronet Worldwide announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire PaynoPain, a Spanish fintech company recognized for its digital-first, online payment solutions serving businesses of all sizes—from SMEs to large enterprises—across industries including ecommerce, hospitality, microfinance, and marketplace platforms. The acquisition strengthens Euronet’s direct merchant acquiring footprint in Spain and Portugal and supports the global expansion of omnichannel online payments and alternative payment methods."
Circle CEO Sees ‘Tremendous Opportunity’ for Yuan-Backed Stablecoin
Yahoo Finance
"Circle Internet Group sees "tremendous opportunity" for yuan-backed stablecoin as digital money becomes increasingly integrated into global trade and finance, said the chief of the world's largest regulated stablecoin issuer. China wants to expand the yuan's role in the global financial system, and stablecoins have emerged as a way to "export" a currency by making it easier for global payments, Jeremy Allaire, co-founder and CEO of Circle, told Reuters."
American Express Offers Customers Protection From Agentic Purchase Errors
MSN
"American Express extended its card member purchase protections to agentic purchases as it also introduced its agentic commerce developer kit on Tuesday. Under the protection commitment, if an American Express card member authorizes an AI agent to make a purchase and that agent sends American Express the customer's authenticated purchase intent, the credit card company will protect eligible customers from charges related to AI agent error."
Venmo Continues Its Evolution from a Peer-to-Peer App into a Money Movement App for the Next Generation
PayPal Newsroom
"Venmo today announced the expansion of Stash¹, its rewards program, giving customers a new way to earn cash back on everyday purchases from some of their favorite lifestyle brands. In addition to Venmo Debit Mastercard² purchases, customers can now earn up to 5% cash back when they pay with Venmo at select merchants in their chosen bundle¹. The expansion makes it easier than ever to turn the purchases customers are already making into tangible value each month."
On the wires
Nacha’s Payments Innovation Alliance Advances Quantum-Safe Payments Education for World Quantum Day
Business Wire
"In support of World Quantum Day, Nacha’s Payments Innovation Alliance is expanding its leadership on quantum-safe payments with the launch of a educational blog series from industry experts. The blog series builds on the Alliance’s foundational paper, “Protecting Payments in the Quantum Era: Setting a Course for Action,” which outlines how quantum computing could impact today’s cryptographic protections and what payments stakeholders should begin doing now to prepare."
April 15, 2026
On the web
The Moment Is Now: What PayPal Beyond Revealed About the Future of Commerce
PayPal Newsroom
"At PayPal Beyond 2026, the mood was clear: move with speed and intention. As leaders gathered in San Francisco, conversations centered on a simple but pressing reality – consumer behavior is shifting fast, powered by AI, and shaped by economic pressure and geopolitical uncertainty. For enterprises and partners gathered in San Francisco this week, the real question isn’t whether to adapt, it's how fast."
Airwallex Is About to Take On Stripe and the Rest of the Payments Industry — in the Physical World
TechCrunch
Airwallex is moving into in-person payments. The move deepens its rivalry with Stripe across the payments stack, and enables the startup to directly aim at Square and Adyen on one of the last major battlegrounds in financial technology. The startup currently boasts close to 90 regulatory licenses across 70 to 80 regions, direct connections to local payment networks in over 120 countries, and the ability to settle transactions in more than 90 currencies.
Adyen Expands Its Partnership With Lastminute By Introducing Virtual Card Issuing For Supplier Payments
Adyen
"Adyen is expanding its collaboration with lastminute.com, a European leader in dynamic holiday packages, thanks to its issuing solution. Through the use of Visa-branded prepaid virtual cards, lastminute has optimized payouts to airlines, hotels, and other suppliers, accelerating access to funds and significantly optimizing currency exchange costs."
Nacha: Rising to the Challenge of First-Party Fraud
Nacha
"Nacha’s Risk Management Advisory Group (RMAG), Rules and Operations Committee, and the First-Party Fraud Workgroup are looking at ways to better identify and mitigate first-party fraud. The first steps are education and raising awareness of the problem. We have issued a series of articles describing first-party fraud and addressing actions for both ODFIs and RDFIs."
dLocal, NEC to Power Remittance Payouts Across Africa
Techeconomy
"dLocal, a cross-border payment platform connecting global merchants to emerging markets, and National Exchange Company, an Italy-based international money transfer operator serving over 5 million customers across 90+ countries worldwide, have announced a partnership to power cross-border remittance payouts across markets in Africa, APAC, and Latin America."
Gr4vy Supports Agentic Payments Through Orchestration and Launches Development Kit to Prepare Merchants for AI Commerce
Gr4vy
"Gr4vy, announced it is fully ready to support agentic payment transactions through its orchestration layer, allowing merchants to manage and process transactions within AI-driven environments. In addition, Gr4vy is launching its Agentic Development Kit (ADK), designed to equip and guide merchants in building and launching AI-native storefronts within platforms such as ChatGPT."
X Is Finally Building the Crypto Plumbing That Could Turn Its Payments Ambitions Into Something Real
Startup Fortune
"For years, the “Everything App” vision Elon Musk attached to his $44 billion Twitter acquisition read more like a pitch deck than a plan. That changed today. X CEO Linda Yaccarino confirmed the platform is in the final stages of building out crypto infrastructure for X Money, the payments ecosystem the company has been telegraphing since at least 2023. The regulatory groundwork is already laid, the licenses are in hand, and the engineering focus has narrowed to one stubborn problem: making volatile digital assets usable at the point of sale."
April 14, 2026
Top Post
American Express Debuts Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE)™ Developer Kit and Announces Industry-First Protection for Registered Agent Purchases
Business Wire
"American Express is building for the next era of commerce. As AI agents reshape how Card Members make everyday transactions, the company is bringing its longstanding tradition of trust, security, and service into AI-powered commerce. Today, American Express is introducing an agentic commerce developer kit and announcing Amex Agent Purchase Protection™, an industry-first commitment to extend its backing to Card Member purchases made by registered AI agents across its network."
On the web
Visa Launches Validator Node on Tempo Blockchain
Visa
"Visa announced it launched its validator node on the Tempo network, marking a milestone in Visa’s advancement of blockchain infrastructure leadership and shaping stablecoin payments. The launch underscores Visa’s commitment to running blockchain operations in-house. Tempo, a blockchain built for agentic commerce and real-time payments, has expanded its validator ecosystem to include financial and commerce partners. Visa, Stripe, and Zodia Custody by Standard Chartered will be the first external validators to join the Tempo network."
The Fed Is Building Competition for XRP’s Core Payments Use Case Into the Fednow Banking System
CryptoSlate
"Over the past several days, the most consequential development around XRP has come from outside crypto. On April 8, the Federal Reserve proposed allowing U.S. banks and credit unions to use intermediaries through the FedNow Service, a change the central bank said could support private-sector cross-border payment solutions. In the Fed’s own proposal details, the logic is explicit. Banks could use an intermediary, such as a correspondent bank, for the international portion of a transaction and use FedNow for the domestic U.S. leg."
April 13, 2026
Top Post
Anthropic: Project Glasswing Securing Critical Software for the AI Era
Anthropic
"Today we’re announcing Project Glasswing, an initiative that brings together Amazon Web Services, Anthropic, Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, CrowdStrike, Google, JPMorganChase, the Linux Foundation, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Palo Alto Networks in an effort to secure the world’s most critical software. We formed Project Glasswing because of capabilities we’ve observed in a new frontier model trained by Anthropic that we believe could reshape cybersecurity. Claude Mythos Preview reveals a stark fact: AI models have reached a level of coding capability where they can surpass all but the most skilled humans at finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities."
On the web
Galileo Enables SoFi to Send and Receive FedNow® Service Payments
Yahoo-Business Wire
"Galileo Financial Technologies, SoFi’s technology platform announced that SoFi, N.A. is offering instant bank transfers via the FedNow® Service powered by Galileo’s payment technology. The new capability lets SoFi members move money in seconds between their SoFi accounts and their accounts at other U.S. banks, at any time of day, including weekends and holidays. Most banks that use FedNow® Service only support receive capabilities. SoFi is going further by allowing members to both send and receive FedNow® Service payments."
Managing The Quantum Threat to Blockchains
Citigroup
"Quantum computing primarily threatens public-key cryptography especially digital signatures that secure authentication identity and blockchain ownership The most immediate risk to blockchains is exposed public keys and operational key infrastructure not the underlying blockchain protocol Even if cryptographically relevant quantum machines are years away companies must start preparing now because upgrading blockchains takes time."
Hong Kong’s Stablecoin Revolution Will Be Whitelisted
Blockhead
The HKMA handed its first approvals to the banks that already print the Hong Kong dollar. That tells you everything about what these tokens are meant to be. HSBC has been clear about its intended use cases: peer-to-peer payments through PayMe, merchant payments, and subscriptions to tokenised investment products.
April 10, 2026
On the web
What Are Stablecoins Used for Today? Estimating the Distribution of Stablecoins
Kansas City Federal Reserve
"In this Payments System Research Briefing, the distribution of stablecoins by function is depicted and three basic observations are made. First, payments are still a very small part of the stablecoin ecosystem. Second, a significant portion of stablecoins are held in bridging protocols that facilitate transfer of value between different blockchain networks; the need for this operation indicates that the stablecoin ecosystem still lacks interoperability. Third, a majority of stablecoins continue to be used in crypto finance rather than moving independently, suggesting that the stablecoin ecosystem is sensitive to the fortunes of this industry."
Velera Enhances Fintech Engagement Program to Deliver Exclusive Benefits
Velera
"Velera announced an evolution of its Fintech Engagement Program, introducing an inaugural cohort of six fintech partners offering exclusive benefits, such as discounted pricing or waived fees, to Velera credit unions. The new group includes six fintech companies: Coverbase: AI-native third-party risk & procurement platform InvestiFi: Integrated digital investing platform Larky: Proactive account holder engagement Spiral: Personalized savings and giving that grow deposits Swaystack: Gamified onboarding and engagement Union Credit: Embedded lending marketplace."