In a move designed to strengthen its capabilities for integrated payments, processor and technology provider Total System Services has agreed to acquire Cayan for $1.05 billion. The news shortly follows another deal valued in the billions — Thales agreeing to buy the chip maker Gemalto for $5.4 billion.

Readers react to the change in tone at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the launch of voice-command banking on Amazon’s Alexa, how regulation affects financial innovation and more.

Alternative data can be beneficial for individuals locked out of the financial system’s more conventional data types, but such data is open to manipulation or biased interpretation.

During a sit-down interview, Bruce Van Saun, the CEO at Citizens Financial, explained how Washington policy changes could boost lending, why cyber threats keep him up nights and how fintechs and AI are changing the industry for the better.

Virtual assistants at banks in Israel, Canada and Hong Kong are getting smarter thanks to artificial intelligence.

The right platform can detect unusual behaviors and block fraudulent transactions as they occur, while still allowing real customers to make legitimate transactions without interruptions, writes Dave Excell, CTO and co-founder of Featurespace.

The digitally driven retail environment has caused lots of adapt-or-die challenges for payment processors and merchant acquirers, including spotting fraud as it moves from one device and channel to another.

BMO Financial group will invest $2 million into a new artificial intelligence lab in Montreal designed to help startups make the transition from science projects to high-growth companies.

Widespread data breaches have sparked a rise in account-takeover fraud using stolen consumer credentials, prompting merchants to crack down on suspicious purchases. But too many legitimate customers are getting caught in the process.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is centralizing information and updates for global commercial card administrators within an online tool called Card Assistant.

Fintech startup Payrailz is positioning itself firmly in the "invisible" payments market that's taking shape in the e-commerce and mobile app business. Only in Payrailz's case, it's making a direct appeal to smaller banks that may have the greatest need to update their tech.

For years, American Express has analyzed the more than $1 trillion in annual purchases taking place on its closed-loop network to better advise clients to formulate marketing programs.

The sexual harassment tsunami continues, with stories from Fidelity and France. The woman behind Capital One's new chatbot drew on her experience creating animated characters for Pixar. And Wells Fargo whistleblowers speak out.

The spread of Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant and Samsung's Bixby is changing the way consumers interact with technology. Behind the scenes, artificial intelligence is doing more than ever to handle and protect payments.

Without the constant innovation that artificial intelligence empowers, legacy companies will quickly lose their edge as competitors whisk away consumers with new offerings and customized products, writes Ajay Vij, senior vice president and head of financial services for Infosys.

For much of the last decade, credit card companies and issuers have fine-tuned security to the point where if any suspicious activity occurs on a cardholder account, that cardholder will receive an alert. That same sort of transaction and behavioral analytics is starting to come into other business sectors and walks of life.

The fintech is partnering with Choice Financial in North Dakota to create a Douugh-branded checking account and debit card that will prominently feature an AI-based virtual assistant named Sophie.

For most retailers heading into this year’s holiday-season sales crunch, the epic Equifax data breach was only the latest in a series of escalating threats that are having a profound effect on the way they handle payments.

Neural network systems — which try to emulate the human brain — will become increasingly important as the stolen identities from the recent Equifax breach and others start surfacing in the coming years on fraudulent payment card or loan applications.

Facebook Messenger now supports person-to-person payments and customer service for PayPal, expanding the funding choices for repaying friends and family and the channels available to PayPal users sending P-to-P payments.