Store-Issued Credit Card Rates Still Soar
Retail credit card interest rates remain stubbornly high, despite the Federal Reserve’s rate cuts at the end of 2024. While standard credit card rates have held steady and mortgage rates have inched lower in recent weeks, retail card rates have shown little movement. According to the 2025 Bankrate Retail Cards study, the average retail card […]
PayPal Users Can Send Payments and Requests Via Links
As the next step in its peer-to-peer (P2P) payments platform, PayPal is launching a feature that enables users to send payment links via text message, email, or direct message. Within the app, the Links feature lets users enter a payment or request amount and generate a private, one-time link for the transaction. The sender can […]
How Will Agentic AI and Gen AI Transform Banking?
Today’s AI agents and Gen AI tools have the potential to remake the financial industry, but only if leadership addresses the human element in AI transformation. This isn’t simply a feel-good strategy, it’s critical for ensuring ROI on AI investments. Although agentic AI could generate up to $450 billion in value by 2028 through revenue […]
Visa Connects Card Network to Onafriq’s Mobile Money Infrastructure
Onafriq was built to connect mobile wallets across Africa, and now its customers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will also be able to link to Visa’s card network. The two firms are launching Visa Pay, a cloud-based payments-as-a-service platform that will allow consumers to fund digital wallets via mobile money channels. Powered by […]
Zelle’s Stablecoin Could Mark Its Entry to Cross-Border Payments
The latest entity to consider minting its own stablecoin is Early Warning Services, the consortium of seven major U.S. banks that owns Zelle. The move could open up a new suite of services for Zelle, most prominently cross-border payments. Zelle has grown by leaps and bounds since its introduction in 2017. It processed more than […]
Why Fraud in Bank Communications Has Been So Hard to Shake
For many years, banks have promised not to send their customers correspondence that looks like scams. They would never ask consumers to click on a link and provide information or ask them for one-time pass codes over the phone. But those strategies aren’t working anymore. Scammers are starting to mimic what bank professionals have been […]
Mastercard Upgrades Agentic Commerce Platform Ahead of the Holidays
The movement to inject agentic artificial intelligence into the shopping experience has taken another step forward. Mastercard has unveiled updates to its Agent Pay platform while expanding agentic commerce partnerships to drive adoption, including recent collaborations with Stripe, Google, and Ant International’s Antom. The platform’s reach is also broadening. Mastercard noted that Citi and U.S. […]
Big Banks Will Soon Rely Heavily on Developer Communities
Why have startup fintechs been able to make up so much ground on 150-year-old banks in recent times? To a great extent, it’s because they have built up developer portals. With open banking on the way, legacy banks face an imperative to build up and work with these developer communities. In a new report from […]
UK Considers Scrapping Transaction Caps on Contactless Card Payments
After years of gradually increasing the limits on contactless card payments, the UK is now considering removing transaction caps entirely. The current limit on contactless card payments is £100 ($136), and many transactions still require four-digit PIN authorization. If the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) moves forward with its proposal, both the cap and the PIN […]
FedNow Transaction Limit Will Match RTP at $10 Million
For the second time in less than a year, the Federal Reserve will raise the transaction limit for its FedNow instant payment system. Starting in November, the cap will increase from $1 million to $10 million. As recently as February, the limit stood at just $500,000. FedNow’s competitor in instant payments, The Clearing House, raised its […]