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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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October 10, 2025
On the web
Splitit Launches Partner Program to Power Installments for Agentic Commerce
Splitit MediaRoom
"Splitit, the pioneer of embedded card-linked installments, announced the launch of an invite-only partner program designed to make pay-later capabilities native to Agentic AI, the next generation of AI-driven commerce. The Splitit Agentic Commerce Partner Program will bring card-linked installment capabilities to autonomous shopping agents—AI systems that can search, recommend, and make purchases on behalf of consumers and businesses."
Consumer Checkpoint: The Tale of Two Wallets
Bank of America Institute
Consumer spending has risen, but the gap between lower- and higher-income households remains pronounced. Total credit and debit card spending per household increased 2.0% year-over-year (YoY) in September, compared to 1.7% YoY in August, according to Bank of America aggregated card data.
Education: Understanding CHIPS: Key US Clearing House for Large Transactions
Investopedia
"CHIPS is a primary clearing house for large U.S. banking transactions, settling over $1.8 trillion daily. Unlike Fedwire, CHIPS uses a netting process for transactions, which is slower but more cost-effective. CHIPS supports various transaction types, such as interbank transfers, corporate payments, and foreign exchange."
October 9, 2025
Top Post
How Do Consumers’ Fraud Experiences Vary with Their Financial Vulnerability?
Federal Reserve
"A sizeable share of U.S. consumers has been exposed to financial fraud. In this Payments System Research Briefing, we examine how both the share of consumers who experienced financial fraud and the share who ultimately incurred fraud losses varies by consumers’ level of financial vulnerability."
On the web
Zilch Unveils Intelligent Commerce & Zilch Pay to Power Next Phase of Rapid Growth
Zilch
"Zilch unveiled milestone product developments marking the next phase of its exponential growth. At its first ever Zilch Summit, bringing together over 150 leading retailers, technology and industry experts, the business unveiled Zilch Intelligent Commerce – an AI powered data intelligence platform for retailers and brands to dramatically increase their return on ad spend when working with Zilch. The business also announced it is set to launch Zilch Pay in H1 2026, providing users with one-click rapid checkout to reduce friction at payment and boost conversions."
Affirm Extends Collaboration With Google as a Supporter of Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)
Affirm Holdings, Inc.
"Affirm announced its support for Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), an open, payment-agnostic protocol developed with leading payments and technology companies to securely support agent-led payments across platforms. The collaboration extends Affirm’s long-standing partnership with Google, which also includes integrations with Google Pay and Chrome’s autofill feature."
On the wires
African Trade Bloc COMESA Launches Digital Payments System
Reuters
"The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa has launched a digital payments system to cut transaction costs by allowing businesses to settle deals in local currencies. COMESA, which has 21 member states including Egypt, Kenya and Ethiopia, joins efforts by the African continent to push for local currency payments systems to cut trade costs by eliminating the need to convert local currencies into hard currencies, mostly U.S. dollars, for cross-border payments."
India Rolls Out Pilot for E-commerce Payments via ChatGPT
Reuters
"India's payments authority National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and fintech firm Razorpay have collaborated with Microsoft-backed OpenAI to launch AI-driven payments on ChatGPT. The initiative, currently in the pilot stage, will allow users to make purchases on ChatGPT, facilitated by India's homegrown payments network Unified Payments Interface (UPI)."
G20’s Cross-Border Payments Push Set to Miss 2027 Target
Reuters
"Global financial authorities are set to miss a 2027 target set by the G20 group of nations to make international cross-border payments faster, cheaper and more transparent, the G20's Financial Stability Board said on Thursday. Goals set in 2021 included cutting the global average cost of a retail payment to no more than 1% and for 75% of wholesale and retail payments to be credited within an hour of being made."
October 8, 2025
Top Post
From E-Commerce to A-Commerce: The Dawn of Agentic AI Payments
The National Law Review
"Google’s recent announcement of the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) raises a range of fascinating legal questions. Yes, A2P is certainly likely to revolutionize how we shop and make payments. But the missing piece is the inevitable starting point. How does one confidently and accurately verify the true identity of the purchaser’s/seller’s agents? AP2 transactions are purported to be “non-repudiable”—but that depends on whether the identities of the purchaser’s/seller’s agents have actually been verified. While having an immutable blockchain audit trail will help, as many deep fake crypto scams have shown, it is not a fool-proof safeguard. In the meantime, we lawyers have our own concerns...."
Visa: Transforming Payments With Generative AI Technologies
Visa
"Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is no longer just a futuristic concept. It is here, is becoming increasingly common, and is set to radically transform how we interact with technology in all areas. Payments is no exception. In this deep dive into What’s influencing payments in 2025: 10 recommendations on business strategy, Visa investigates GenAI, how it is shaking up payments, its economic impact, and what the future may hold for this revolutionary technology."
On the web
Checkout Launches Flow Remember Me, a One-Click Solution for Global Digital Payments
Checkout
"Checkout.com announced a series of innovations across its product suite including the global launch of Flow Remember Me, an extension of Flow that allows shoppers to save their card details once and then have them immediately available for use across Checkout.com’s global network of merchants. Following a beta launch in the Middle East, Flow Remember Me is now available in 194 countries, with early adopters experiencing 22% fewer authentication challenges, 30% less timeouts, and a 70% reduction in checkout time."
Sabre Direct Pay Introduces Integrated Chargeback Management Service for the Travel Industry
WebWire
"Sabre Direct Pay, the travel payments division of Sabre Corporation, is introducing a new service designed to help travel companies simplify and scale chargebacks, enabling dispute resolution more efficiently across both issuing and acquiring channels. Developed in partnership with Chargebacks911, the solution enables users to initiate and represent charge disputes without navigating multiple issuer or acquirer systems, removing the need for separate logins, manual data entry, or technical integration—bringing together what is typically a disjointed set of workflows into a single interface tailored for the travel industry."
From PhonePe To Navi: Here’re The New Launches By Fintech Startups At Global Fintech Festival 2025
Inc42 Media
"Amazon’s digital payment arm Amazon Pay has launched UPI Circle, allowing primary users to manage payments on behalf of family members and trusted contacts; BharatPe launched BharatPeX, its new payment aggregators and payment gateways (PAPG) online brand to help businesses accept and send money more conveniently across medium; Global fintech firm Revolut officially announced its India entry, with plans to onboard 2 Cr customers in India by 2030."
Financial Institutions Can Use Instant Payments to Attract Customers, Improve Satisfaction and Lower Risk of Attrition
Federal Reserve
"U.S. consumers want fast, convenient payment methods, and younger generations are adopting nonbank providers to meet their expectations. A new study from Federal Reserve Financial Services found that 78% of consumers chose faster payments as a preferred option — and half held balances at nonbank providers."
UK’s Revolut to Launch India Payments Platform, Eyes 20 Million Customers by 2030
Yahoo Finance/Reuters
"London-based digital finance firm Revolut said it will launch its payment platform in India, its first foray into one of the world's largest digital payments markets, as part of a planned global expansion. Revolut will let Indian users make domestic and international payments via its tie-ups with the Unified Payments Interface and Visa, starting with 350,000 waitlisted customers later this year before opening to others."
Square Brings Bitcoin to Main Street With First Integrated Payments and Wallet Solution for Local Businesses
Block
"Square introduced Square Bitcoin, the first fully integrated bitcoin payments and wallet solution – built for local businesses of all sizes. Consisting of Bitcoin Payments and Bitcoin Conversions, Square Bitcoin enables sellers to accept bitcoin payments with zero processing fees,¹ automatically convert card sales into bitcoin, and manage their bitcoin alongside their other business finances – all within the Square ecosystem."
Square AI Gains New Intelligence Capabilities, Providing Deeper Business and Neighborhood Insights to Square Sellers
Block
"Square announced significant enhancements to Square AI, its conversational AI assistant. New functionality in Square AI includes: Deeper, local data insights; Pinned data on Dashboard; Conversation history; Mobile access on the Square Dashboard App."
Square Releases Delivers for Restaurants, With Square’s Biggest Food & Beverage Platform Expansion To Date
Block
"Square delivered the most significant expansion of its food and beverage platform to date: Take Orders, Everywhere; AI-Powered Voice Ordering; Square’s latest Grubhub integration; Enhanced Square Kiosk; Multichannel Menu Management."
Pricing in Fast Payments: A Practical and Theoretical Overview
BIS
"Fast payment systems (FPS) enable the instant transfer and availability of funds on a 24/7 basis, offering an alternative to cash and payment cards. While FPS adoption is growing globally, a key open question is how fast payments should be priced. Pricing schemes in FPS need to balance the competing goals of enhancing usage and incentivising the participation of payment service providers (PSPs)."
NPCI Piloting Agentic AI-Based Payments With UPI
Inc42 Media
"The National Payments Corporation of India is piloting an agentic AI framework for UPI, marking the next phase of what it calls “intelligent commerce”. The payments body showcased a live demo of the offering at the Global Fintech Fest 2025 today. The on-stage presentation featured Gemini, BigBasket, Google Pay, and Razorpay as partners. It opened with a simple use case – an AI assistant helping a user recreate a food recipe."
European Central Bank Selects Digital Euro Service Providers
European Central Bank
"The ECB has signed framework agreements with the following providers for the five digital euro components and related services: Alias lookup: (1) Sapient GmbH & Tremend Software Consulting S.R.L, (2) equensWorldline; Risk and fraud management: (1) Feedzai, (2) Capgemini Deutschland; App and software development kit (SDK): (1) Almaviva SpA & Fabrick SpA, (2) Sapient GmbH & Tremend Software Consulting S.R.L; offline solution: (1) Giesecke+Devrient, (2) To be announced in due course; secure exchange of payment information: (1) Senacor FCS, (2) equensWorldline"
Albania Starts Transactions Through SEPA, a Historic Step Towards European Integration
European Newsroom
"Albania, by becoming part of SEPA, joins 41 other European countries, including all EU member states, benefiting from a modern and efficient common financial market."
NetSuite and BILL Partner to Accelerate Accounts Payable Processes
PR Newswire
"Oracle NetSuite and BILL move and maximize their money, have formed a strategic partnership to deliver enhanced payment processing to US customers. The new BILL-powered payment automation capability, which is embedded in NetSuite Intelligent Payment Automation, helps customers accelerate accounts payable processes, increase efficiency, and reduce risk. With quick activation and support for all US banks, the new BILL-powered payment automation capability will enable NetSuite customers to begin making payments from their existing bank accounts within minutes of signing up."
PhonePe, Mastercard Partner to Launch Device Tokenization
Tech In Asia
"PhonePe has partnered with Mastercard to launch device tokenization for its payments gateway, aiming to boost security for online transactions. PhonePe, an India-based digital payments platform, said the new feature allows customers to save their card details once on the PhonePe app and use them across multiple merchants without reentering information. The device tokenization initiative leverages Mastercard’s network tokenization technology and aligns with recent Reserve Bank of India regulations allowing alternative authentication methods."
Stablecoins: The New Currency of Online Criminals
Bank Info Security
"Criminals are swapping volatility for predictability: stablecoins tied to the U.S. dollar offer certainty and cross-chain speed needed to scale theft, forcing investigators to shift from post-fact subpoenas to real-time chain tracking. Stablecoins often run across multiple blockchains and move with greater speed, which "create[s] new challenges for tracing and attribution," Redbord said, adding that public ledgers keep the data accessible but force a new emphasis on tools that "follow value across chains in real time."
On the wires
Bank of North Dakota and Fiserv Partner to Launch "Roughrider Coin," North Dakota's First Stablecoin
Business Wire
"Fiserv, Inc. in partnership with the Bank of North Dakota, announced the Roughrider coin, North Dakota’s first stablecoin. Fully backed by U.S. dollars, the Roughrider coin will be the first U.S. state stablecoin to launch on the Fiserv digital asset platform."
India to Roll Out Biometric Authentication for Instant Digital Payments
Reuters
"India will allow users to approve payments made through popular domestic payments network, the Unified Payments Interface, using facial recognition and fingerprints starting October 8. Authentications will be done using biometric data stored under the Government of India's unique identification system - Aadhar."
October 7, 2025
On the web
Stripe: Introducing Our Agentic Commerce Solutions
Stripe
"The ACP specification is already powering its first real-world use case: Instant Checkout in ChatGPT. ChatGPT users in the US can now buy from US Etsy sellers—and soon from more than a million Shopify merchants, such as Glossier, Vuori, Spanx, and SKIMS—directly in chat. ACP is just the beginning. Here are some of the additional steps Stripe is taking to build agentic commerce solutions for AI platforms and businesses. To support this shift, Stripe built Shared Payment Tokens (SPT), a new payment primitive for AI commerce. SPTs let agents initiate payments using a buyer’s permission and preferred payment method, without exposing credentials."
PhonePe Launches Next-Gen SmartSpeaker With Integrated Card Payments
PhonePe has launched its new SmartPOD, a device merging POS and smart speaker
functions, enabling small merchants to accept both UPI and card payments. Designed
in India, it supports major card networks and offers features like dual displays and
celebrity voice confirmations. This move aims to boost digital payment adoption for
businesses of all sizes across India.
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