The Biggest Bottleneck in Commercial Banking? Onboarding
Digital banking has trained consumers to expect speed, simplicity, and instant results. Yet, when those same expectations reach the commercial side of the house, many financial institutions fall short—leaving business clients stuck in slow, manual onboarding journeys that drive up costs and frustration. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Penny Townsend, Co-Founder and Chief Payments Officer […]
Are Consumers Paying with Cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrency has been talked about as the future of money for more than a decade. But talk and everyday behavior are not the same thing. While headlines often focus on price swings and speculation, a quieter question matters more for payments: are consumers actually using crypto to pay for things? Don’t miss another episode of […]
PayPal Seeks Bank Charter to Take Small Business Lending In-House
PayPal has filed an application for a bank charter to expand and strengthen its lending services to small businesses. The application has been submitted to the Utah Department of Financial Institutions and the FDIC to establish PayPal Bank, which would be chartered in Utah. To date, PayPal has extended more than $30 billion in loans […]
Trouble at Home: A Second Flop in Credit Card Rewards
There is nothing wrong with a good failure, provided you protect your investors and learn a lesson. Here’s one for the books: co-brands sounded like a winner in shelter products, but one of the best credit card lenders couldn’t build a successful model with renters, and another fintech that tried to address the homeowners market […]
EU Payments Fraud Rises Despite Effective Authentication Measures
The revised Payments Services Directive (PSD2) was designed to facilitate open banking in the European Union while also providing consumers with protections in the new digital payments paradigm. Although these measures have largely achieved their objectives, the evolving fraud threat has continued to drive losses. A joint study by the European Banking Authority (EBA) and […]
Visa’s Stablecoin Advisory Practice Aims to Open Up the Market
With its own stablecoin business gaining momentum, Visa is launching a new advisory service aimed at helping banks, credit unions, and other enterprises implement their own stablecoin strategies. Housed within Visa Consulting & Analytics, the Stablecoin Advisory Practice will offer training, market analysis, strategy development, use-case sizing, and technical support for organizations looking to explore […]
Payments Simplicity Is Still Key for Most Shoppers
Despite the inroads made by digital wallets and agentic commerce, shoppers still turn to the simplest and most convenient ways to pay. Worldwide, many consumers continue to prefer manned checkout stations over unattended alternatives, and credit or debit cards over digital wallets. That’s what a new survey from Australian payments firm TNS found. Across […]
YouTube to Launch PayPal Stablecoin Payouts for Creators
Most of the buzz around stablecoins has focused on payment acceptance, but payouts are the lifeblood of many businesses. In a major step for the industry, YouTube will now allow creators to receive their payouts in PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin. Stablecoins are well-suited to meet the growing demand for faster, more efficient payouts because they provide […]
Ant International and HSBC Pilot Cross-Border Tokenized Deposit Transfers on Swift
Cross-border payments are entering a new phase, where traditional rails meet digital asset innovation. In a major step forward, Ant International and HSBC have teamed up to pilot tokenized deposit transfers over the Swift network using the ISO 20022 protocol. ISO 20022 is a messaging standard that allows organizations to exchange significantly larger payments data […]
2026 Will See Lackluster Growth in Credit: Thank Heavens
Javelin’s 2026 Credit Card Trends report anticipated moderate growth in 2026, and we are pleased to see the credit reporting agency TransUnion share a similar expectation. Their numbers use a different source than the Federal Reserve numbers we use, as they rely on consumer files rather than bank filings. Either way, it is time for […]