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THE GLOBAL WALLET WAR: WHO WILL OWN THE CUSTOMER?

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Alipay’s Agentic Commerce surpasses 120 million weekly transactions

13 Feb 26 @ 14:51

Alipay has crossed a symbolic threshold in the evolution of digital payments. The company revealed that its agentic commerce, AI Pay platform processed more than 120 million transactions in a... read more

Visa extends real-time money movement into mainland China

10 Feb 26 @ 17:30

Visa is pushing deeper into one of the world’s most strategically important payment corridors, announcing a partnership with UnionPay International to enable cross-border, real-time payments into mainland China. The agreement... read more

Mastercard positions “Readiness” as the real test for Agentic AI

10 Feb 26 @ 16:59

As Agentic AI moves from experimentation to execution, Mastercard is arguing that technology alone will not determine winners. Instead, organisational readiness — spanning skills, data, governance and security — is... read more

Amazon introduces Pay by Bank, taking A2A payments mainstream

10 Feb 26 @ 15:31

Amazon’s launch of Pay by Bank in the UK marks a significant moment for account-to-account (A2A) payments in e-commerce. By allowing customers to pay directly from their bank accounts without... read more

Search to checkout: How Alphabet is building agentic commerce

09 Feb 26 @ 18:07

Alphabet is no stranger to outsized investment cycles, but its latest capital expenditure plans signal something more structural. With projected spending of between $175bn and $185bn in 2026, Alphabet is... read more

From hedge to hazard: Bitcoin stressing corporate balance sheets

09 Feb 26 @ 17:14

Warnings about bitcoin excess are hardly new, but when they come from Michael Burry, markets tend to pay closer attention. The investor famed for anticipating the US subprime mortgage collapse... read more

Major European wallets agree cross-border payments rollout

09 Feb 26 @ 13:24

Europe’s long-running ambition to reclaim control over its payments infrastructure has taken a tangible step forward. A new memorandum of understanding signed by Bancomat, Bizum, SIBS, Vipps MobilePay and EPI... read more

From Promissory Notes to Stablecoins: Inside Russia’s shadow payments network

05 Feb 26 @ 10:06

When Western governments cut major Russian banks off from the Swift messaging system in the wake of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, they hoped to choke the country’s ability to... read more

The evolution of POS: From terminals to touchpoints

04 Feb 26 @ 17:17

For decades, the POS terminal was a steadfast but unremarkable fixture of retail life — the small, grey box whose sole purpose was to approve or decline a card transaction.... read more

The global wallet war: Who will own the customer?

04 Feb 26 @ 16:51

Mobile wallets were once presented as sleek digital accessories — a faster way to tap in store, a smooth way to pay online. That era has passed. Today, the wallet... read more

Crypto payments move into mainstream POS payments

03 Feb 26 @ 18:04

Digital asset payments are edging closer to everyday commerce as Lydian launches a new application enabling cryptocurrency acceptance across Clover devices for crypto POS payments. The move allows merchants using... read more

Why malicious links are emerging as a systemic risk for agentic AI

02 Feb 26 @ 20:37

OpenAI has raised a pointed warning about an underappreciated vulnerability in agentic AI systems: hyperlinks. As AI agents move beyond conversation into execution — browsing the web, retrieving data and... read more

The stablecoin battleground: Why banks and crypto are fighting

02 Feb 26 @ 20:20

A quiet but consequential struggle is under way at the heart of the global financial system. On one side sit Wall Street’s largest banks, guardians of deposits, credit creation and... read more

Visa and Mastercard beat expectations on earnings

02 Feb 26 @ 20:03

Visa has delivered a solid set of first-quarter results, comfortably exceeding market expectations as consumer spending remained resilient across its global network. Yet the numbers were not enough to placate... read more

How shopping chatbots could reshape the future of retail payments

29 Jan 26 @ 21:31

Artificial intelligence is moving rapidly from novelty to infrastructure in retail, and nowhere was that more apparent than at Retail’s Big Show in New York. While retailers once dominated the... read more

Checkout.com doubles down on Europe with stablecoin play

29 Jan 26 @ 19:33

Checkout.com has taken a decisive step deeper into Europe’s regulated digital money ecosystem with the acquisition of Blue EMI, a licensed electronic money institution authorised to issue euro-denominated stablecoins. The... read more

Debit cards move into instalments as banking and BNPL converge

29 Jan 26 @ 18:08

Instalment payments are no longer confined to online checkouts or specialist buy now, pay later (BNPL) apps. They are increasingly becoming part of everyday banking, embedded directly into debit cards,... read more

Pay by Bank – The future of Europe’s payment sovereignty

28 Jan 26 @ 22:23

Europe’s strategic autonomy debate has expanded far beyond defence and energy. As policymakers increasingly recognise, control over everyday payment systems has become a matter of economic sovereignty. As MEP Aurore... read more

Trending

Takeover talk swirls as PayPal’s valuation slumps

24 Feb 26 @ 12:45

After a bruising year on the public markets, PayPal has become the subject of early-stage takeover interest, underscoring how sharply sentiment has shifted arou... more

The evolution of POS: From terminals to touchpoints

04 Feb 26 @ 17:17

For decades, the POS terminal was a steadfast but unremarkable fixture of retail life — the small, grey box whose sole purpose was to approve or decline a car... more

Major European wallets agree cross-border payments rollout

09 Feb 26 @ 13:24

Europe’s long-running ambition to reclaim control over its payments infrastructure has taken a tangible step forward. A new memorandum of understanding signe... more