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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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August 7, 2026
On the web
Africa: PayPal Expands PYUSD Stablecoin to 27 Additional Markets
APA News
"PayPal has announced the expansion of its PYUSD stablecoin to 27 additional African markets, a strategic move aimed at facilitating cross-border payments and remittances while strictly adhering to local regulatory frameworks. The rollout brings the total number of global markets where PYUSD is available to 70, significantly bolstering PayPal’s operational footprint within Africa’s rapidly expanding digital financial ecosystem."
Varo Bank Expands Fee-Free In-Store Cash Add Capabilities Nationwide
MarketScreener
"Varo Bank, N.A., the first all-digital, nationally chartered consumer bank in the U.S., recently announced the launch of fee-free digital cash add capabilities for Varo customers across more than 2,000 Kroger Family of store locations. Powered by Green Dot’s embedded finance platform and money processing network, this expansion launched as a four-week pilot program (ending on August 18, 2026) supported by a comprehensive co-marketing campaign reaching both existing and prospective customers."
Mastercard’s Trust Layer: The Compliance Bottleneck That Could Decide Who Wins Stablecoin Payments
Yahoo Finance
"The primary obstacle to global stablecoin adoption is not the speed of settlement, but the friction of compliance. Every transaction between disparate providers currently requires redundant verification, a process that fails to scale alongside the underlying network infrastructure. Mastercard and Borderless.xyz announced a pilot program designed to address this inefficiency. By deploying Mastercard's Crypto Credential framework across the Borderless.xyz network, the initiative introduces a standardized trust layer."
Shopify’s 13x AI-Referral Surge Hides the Real Agentic Commerce Story
Yahoo Finance
"Shopify's Q1 2026 commerce data reveals a stark shift in how consumers navigate digital storefronts. AI-referred orders grew nearly 13x year-over-year...Shopify's Agentic Storefronts, powered by the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), facilitate selling directly through AI platforms. However, as noted in in previous coverage of Settlement Architecture Convergence, the technical ability to execute a transaction is only half the battle. The other half is the governance and trust layer, which remains the primary bottleneck for agentic commerce."
Arriving Now: AI-Powered Toast Ordering on Google Maps
Toast
"Toast, the global technology platform built for restaurant and retail businesses, announced an expanded integration with Google that brings agentic food ordering to Ask Maps, a conversational AI feature within Google Maps. When a diner asks—by voice or text—for a restaurant recommendation or specific food request, Ask Maps can now put a Toast restaurant's menu directly in front of them and carry that request all the way through to a completed order."
August 6, 2026
On the web
Klarna Goes Live with J.P. Morgan Payments, Opening Flexible Checkout to U.S. Merchants
Klarna
"Klarna announced its first-ever integration with J.P. Morgan Payments is now live in the U.S. Merchants on J.P. Morgan Payments' Commerce Platform can now offer Klarna's flexible payment options at checkout, with no integration required. Businesses across all retail categories, from apparel and travel to health and wellness, can offer their customers the full suite of Klarna payment options: pay in full, interest-free installments, and longer-term financing, directly through their existing setup."
FIS Launches Digital One™ Commercial to Help APAC Banks Scale Business Banking Across Growth Markets
FIS Global
"FIS has launched Digital One™ Commercial in APAC, a core-agnostic, composable commercial banking platform enabling banks to serve all business segments on a single system without replacing existing core systems. Digital One Commercial supports real-time, multi-rail payments with native multi-language, multi-currency, and cloud-ready capabilities for the region's diverse regulatory environments. The platform’s API-first architecture integrates with accounting systems and ERP platforms."
Mastercard’s Trust Layer: The Compliance Bottleneck That Could Decide Who Wins Stablecoin Payments
Forkast
"By deploying Crypto Credential across the Borderless.xyz network, Mastercard is betting it's over who controls verification at scale. Every transaction between disparate providers currently requires redundant verification, a process that fails to scale alongside the underlying network infrastructure. Mastercard and Borderless.xyz announced a pilot program designed to address this inefficiency. By deploying Mastercard’s Crypto Credential framework across the Borderless.xyz network, the initiative introduces a standardized trust layer."
Riskified and Marqeta Partner to Sharpen Card Issuer Authorization Decisions and Help Reduce False Declines
Riskified
"Riskified announced a partnership with Marqeta to give card issuers on Marqeta’s platform access to Riskified’s pre-authorization risk intelligence. The integration helps issuers make more accurate authorization decisions, approve more legitimate transactions, and reduce false declines across Marqeta’s issuing portfolio."
On the wires
Marqeta Expands Collaboration with Google to Launch New Offering in Wallet for Kids
Business Wire
"Marqeta’s card issuing platform enables Google to expand its Wallet for kids offering, providing a safe, digital-first way for kids to receive and spend allowances without needing a traditional bank account. With Marqeta’s tokenization and spend control functionality, Google enables parents in the U.S. to set daily spending limits, monitor transaction history, and lock or unlock the balance while supervised kids and teens use their Android and Wear OS devices to tap to pay in stores."
August 5, 2026
Top Post
Samsung Is Poised to Become a Dominant Stablecoin Distributor, Analysts Say
CoinDesk
"Samsung’s recent announcement that it is adding stablecoin support to 800 million new smartphones could position the tech giant to become a major stablecoin distributor. Samsung outlined its Samsung Wallet expansion plans during its Galaxy Unpacked 2026 event, saying over 800 million smartphones would have stablecoin features by default, including fiat-pegged savings and payments accounts."
On the web
Circle Taps Visa, Mastercard and BlackRock as Validators for September Arc Launch
Decrypt
"Eleven institutions will run validators alongside Circle when Arc's public mainnet opens on September 16. Total revenue and reserve income reached $701 million, with net income of $48 million against a $482 million loss a year earlier. Last month, Circle won final approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national trust bank."
Visa Expands Stablecoin Capabilities on Visa Direct with zerohash Collaboration
The Block
"Visa is integrating stablecoin functionality into its Visa Direct platform through a partnership with zerohash, allowing eligible clients to prefund merchant accounts and send payouts in stablecoins. Visa Direct reportedly connects to more than 18 billion endpoints, including cards, bank accounts and digital wallets."
Fiserv and Stuut Partner to Bring Agentic AI to Enterprise Receivables
Fiserv, Inc.
"Fiserv, Inc. announced a strategic partnership with Stuut Technologies to help eligible enterprise finance teams modernize manual, fragmented B2B receivables processes where available. The collaboration brings together Fiserv’s Commerce Hub, Fiserv’s global payments platform, and SnapPay®, its order-to-cash solution, with Stuut’s AI-enabled automation capabilities to support collections, cash application, payments, disputes, and deductions, subject to applicable requirements and implementation timelines."
Nuvei and BlackLine Partner to Modernize the Invoice-to-Cash Process Through Embedded Payments
Nuvei
"Nuvei, the global fintech building the infrastructure for every payment, everywhere, today announced a partnership with BlackLine, the Agentic Financial Operations Platform™ for the Office of the CFO, to embed payment acceptance directly into BlackLine's invoice-to-cash platform. The partnership combines BlackLine's invoice presentment and payment capabilities with Nuvei's payments infrastructure, enabling customers to settle an invoice the moment they receive it and have that payment matched and reconciled automatically."
Mastercard and Pexa Partner to Explore Synchronised Settlement to Create Greater Certainty for UK Homebuyers
IFA Magazine
"A new partnership between PEXA and Mastercard will explore how greater certainty could be provided for UK homebuyers on completion day, by testing account-to-account (A2A) payment innovation to support the property buying journey."
Lithic and Lightspark Partner to Power Global Card Program on Stablecoin Settlement Rails
Business Wire
"Lithic, the card issuer processing platform and Lightspark, the open infrastructure for moving money worldwide, today announced a partnership to power Lightspark’s card program on the Visa network issued by Lead Bank. The program settles in USDC, part of a broader industry shift toward using stablecoins and blockchain-based infrastructure for real-world settlement."
Meta Adds Stablecoin Option for Advertisers to Fund Ad Accounts
Social Samosa
"Meta has introduced stablecoin payments as an option for advertisers in select countries to add funds to their ad accounts. Advertisers can use USDC, a stablecoin designed to maintain a 1:1 peg with the US dollar, to fund their accounts. The company does not directly hold, transmit, or process stablecoins. Instead, a third-party payment partner converts USDC into local currency and settles the payment with Meta. The corresponding amount is then added to the advertiser's ad account balance in the selected currency."
Visa’s $2.4 Billion BioCatch Acquisition Signals the Next Wave of AI-Powered Payments
International Supermarket News
"For Visa, the investment represents a strategic move to strengthen the security of digital transactions at a time when online fraud is becoming increasingly sophisticated. BioCatch has become one of the industry’s leading providers of behavioural biometrics, a technology that analyses how users interact with their devices. The platform studies hundreds of behavioural indicators such as typing rhythm, mouse movements, touchscreen gestures and navigation patterns to determine whether the person using the account is the legitimate customer."
The Art of Assessing Customer Intent: Authorized Party Fraud Trends
The Federal Reserve
"Over recent years, authorized party fraud committed deliberately by legitimate customers (often referred to as first-party fraud) has emerged as a fast-growing, complex category of loss for financial institutions. One industry source estimated that in 2025, this type of fraudulent behavior made up 37% of fraud events (PDF, Off-site) across financial services globally. Fraudulent behavior, such as false claims, misuse of payment channels or money mule activity, may resemble normal behavior."
On the wires
NectarPay to Deploy 11,000 Payment Terminals Across Texas, Expanding Real-World Crypto Payments
GlobeNewswire News Room
"NectarPay, a non-custodial cryptocurrency payment platform, is investing $1.2 million to deploy 11,000 handheld point-of-sale terminals to merchants across Texas. The rollout builds on an initial deployment already underway in the Dallas-Fort Worth area with the first 1,000 terminals, where merchants have begun onboarding ahead of full hardware delivery. The terminals give merchants a way to accept cryptocurrency directly from customers without the fees charged by traditional card networks like Visa and Mastercard."
August 4, 2026
Top Post
2026 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice: Cash Remains Essential for U.S. Consumers
The Federal Reserve
"After a decade of tracking U.S. payment habits, the Federal Reserve's latest research from the 2026 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice reveals notable consistency in consumer payment behavior, even as technology has rapidly evolved. Consumers made an average of 47 payments per month in 2025, similar to 2024 levels. The total number of payments made with cards — both debit and credit — remained consistent with the previous year. All other payment instruments and their respective shares also held steady."
On the web
Wells Fargo to Launch Tokenized Deposits for Corporate and Commercial Clients
Wells Fargo
"Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) today announced the introduction of tokenized deposits, a blockchain-based representation of commercial bank money that when fully deployed will enable Wells Fargo’s corporate and commercial clients to move, program, and settle funds 24/7/365 — without leaving the regulated, insured banking system. The program will roll out this fall with a limited U.S. dollar (USD) to British pound (GBP) exchange and will expand over the course of 2027 to more clients, countries, and currencies."
Fiserv and Mastercard Deepen Global Partnership to Help Merchants Innovate & Expand
Fiserv, Inc.
"Fiserv, Inc. and Mastercard announced a strategic global partnership to help eligible enterprise merchants simplify commerce through an expanded suite of integrated value-added services. The companies will integrate Mastercard Merchant Cloud into Fiserv Commerce Hub, bringing together their complementary strengths to give merchants a single connection to Mastercard’s advanced services across online, mobile and in-store channels."
Adyen to Provide Payment Technology Services for LillyDirect
Adyen
"Adyen announced it will help facilitate payment services for prescribed patients accessing Lilly’s FDA-approved medicines and free home delivery through LillyDirect. The platform's scalability provides LillyDirect with a foundation to continuously enhance payment options as patient needs evolve. Transactions will utilize Adyen's Intelligent Payment Routing, an AI-powered feature that automatically selects the most efficient U.S. debit network for each transaction, optimizing performance without additional integration."
Apple Pay Launches in the Philippines
Apple Newsroom (Philippines)
"Apple announced users in the Philippines can now make purchases using Apple Pay with their iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac. Thousands of merchants in the Philippines will accept Apple Pay, with support from some of the country’s most established banks. When using a credit or debit card with Apple Pay, the actual card numbers are not stored on the device, nor on Apple servers. Instead, a unique Device Account Number is assigned, encrypted, and securely stored in the Secure Element safely on the device."
Agentic Commerce 2026: The State of Consumer Demand and Merchant Readiness
Checkout
AI is reshaping how brands compete – 42% of merchants are already testing agentic commerce. This creates a new commercial dynamic, raising both risk and opportunity. Explore consumer attitudes towards AI agents across six countries, and discover how merchants are moving from ideas to action [Report].
Is Your Checkout Set Up for Peak Seasons?
Payabl
"This guide blends exclusive consumer insights from Coleman Parkes research with data from The state of European checkouts."
Western Union Launches Stablecard in Partnership with Rain
Business Wire
"The Western Union Company and Rain, announced the launch of Stablecard by Western Union, a digital wallet and USDPT-backed Visa secured credit card designed to enable consumers to hold, move and spend U.S. dollar value globally."
Plaid and Sierra Partner to Move AI Agents from Conversations to Business Outcomes
Plaid
"Last month Sierra launched Horizon, a platform that enables agents to proactively engage over days, weeks, or months, figuring out the next steps required to refinance a loan, collect an overdue payment, or settle an insurance claim. Customers can now securely connect their bank accounts with Plaid directly within Sierra’s agent. This creates new customer experiences. People can make payments or verify their finances without leaving the conversation."
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