What Banks Get Wrong About Small Business Credit Cards
Banks are underselling one of their most important small business products. While they emphasize rates and fees, business owners are looking for something far more valuable: tools that help them run their businesses more effectively. While these features are undoubtedly important, focusing on them alone overlooks what many business owners value more—credit cards as powerful […]
Google Warns That Quantum Computing Could Soon Crack Crypto Encryption
The approval of bitcoin ETFs sent the price of bitcoin soaring to new heights last year, marking one of many milestones for the burgeoning digital assets industry. While bitcoin has since pulled back, the financial services sector’s interest in digital assets has not waned, as evidenced by Mastercard’s recent $1.8 billion acquisition of stablecoin company […]
How Changing APRs Affect Credit Card Users
Credit card holders may be more sensitive to changes in interest rates than commonly assumed. Data reveals that, on average, a 1 percentage point increase in a borrower’s annual percentage rate leads to an almost 9% drop in credit card spending the following month. Researchers at the Boston Federal Reserve describe this adjustment as an “economically meaningful […]
Embedding Payments for Growth: How ISVs Can Scale Through Vertical Focus and Partnerships
Embedded finance, embedded commerce, and integrated payments are different names for the same shift: integrating payments and financial services into your platform to deliver more value to customers and unlock recurring revenue streams. As Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) position themselves for success in a crowded and dynamic marketplace, building a comprehensive embedded commerce strategy is […]
Mobile Payments Stall as Switzerland Clings to Cash and Debit
As transformative payment types like digital assets and real-time payments have emerged, many have treated their eventual dominance as a foregone conclusion. While these methods have gained rapid traction in some regions, payments inertia has proven difficult to overcome in others. In the U.S., a deeply entrenched financial services infrastructure has fostered a card-driven ecosystem […]
BetMGM Is the Latest Gambling Platform to Move Away from Credit Cards
As sports betting operators move away from credit cards, BetMGM is eliminating them entirely following a fraud-related settlement with Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board also fined BetMGM $100,000, alleging it “failed to have sufficient procedures to prevent the fraudulent behavior,” particularly in identity verification. State regulators identified multiple cases in which fraudulent users opened […]
From a Checkbox to a Differentiator: Redefining ACH Fraud Monitoring
Last year, the treasurer’s office in Warren County, New York sent $3.3 million to what it believed was the county’s roadwork and maintenance contractor. It was not—the payments were instead routed to a fraudulent account. Because the county had recently switched from paper checks to ACH, the treasurer’s office had no account verification policies in […]
Pumping the Brakes on Anthropic’s Leaked Cybersecurity AI
News of a leaked Anthropic AI model rattled the cybersecurity industry, sending the stocks of major firms sharply lower. What initially looked like a potential game changer now raises urgent questions: can organizations trust AI with their most sensitive digital assets, or does this incident simply reinforce the need for expert protection? According to Mint, […]
Could Mastercard’s Instant Payments Divestiture Signal a Strategy Shift?
Real-time payments have reshaped entire economies in markets like Brazil and India, but they are not just a domestic rail for faster account-to-account transfers. India’s UPI, for example, has expanded beyond its borders through integrations with systems in other regions and continues to add new features at a rapid pace. The promise of real-time payments […]
Turning a Prepaid Card into a Long-Term Relationship
Consumers aren’t just receiving prepaid cards anymore—they’re reloading them. What was once a one-time gift is increasingly being used like a personal spending account, signaling a shift in how prepaid fits into everyday financial life. In a new report, Self-Use Motivations Extend the Prepaid Payments Life Cycle, Jordan Hirschfield, Director of Prepaid at Javelin Strategy […]