Payments

Research from American Banker finds banks are top AI users and plan to stay at the top for the future. But can rising costs hurt chances for positive results?

The fintech's CEO told analysts during Thursday's earnings call that generative AI was taking search by storm and that investors "should absolutely expect us to have an answer for that."

The payment company joins other firms that are expanding apps in Europe, where Apple has agreed to ease access to supporting technology. Plus, the U.K. plans a new crypto crackdown.

AI agents have the power to automate a number of once-manual tasks: They can conduct background research, generate content, write code and analyze data. In their latest evolution, driven by Visa, Mastercard and other fintechs, payments are now on the menu of services.

The bureau's Tuesday afternoon announcement follows an earlier statement that it would walk back a rule that places buy now/pay later loans under the Truth in Lending Act's Regulation Z, a move that will ease compliance for fintechs that offer installment loans.

The pending acquisition is one of several large deals involving payment companies in recent years as legacy firms look for combinations that can counter newer fintech rivals.

The three largest deals raised an average of more than $136 million.

A service outage on Friday at Fiserv affected multiple banks and crippled at least 60 applications for some Fiserv customers, including Early Warning's peer-to-peer money transfer app Zelle. The issue, while resolved, reiterates the importance of bank redundancies.

Curve, a London-based fintech, has added a mobile wallet to its flagship product that lets consumers switch cards after the point of purchase.

Paper check use is dropping, but it's still high enough to be a fraud concern for banks. The Trump administration's move to mandate digital could force banks to dump paper once and for all.