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Karen Webster describes Monday Conversation as a window into “interesting companies doing interesting things.” In 2025, the most useful interviews for banking, payments and FinTech leaders were often the ones that barely mentioned payments at all. They were about what sits beneath the transaction: workflow, trust and data quality.
Across farms, clinics, AI labs and labor platforms, a...
On the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic, large banks were jolted by the sudden rise of a new credit alternative. That 2019, buy now, pay later option from specialized providers like Klarna, Affirm and AfterPay took off with cash-strapped consumers. BNPL sought to compete with the multi-trillion-dollar credit card industry, where banks issuing plastic fuel the workhorse of American credit. Wall Street...
As artificial intelligence (AI) use increases within accounts payable (AP) departments, it is starting to surface patterns and deliver insights that many finance teams were not aware were hiding in the data, turning routine invoice flows into early signals about cash, risk and supplier behavior.
That is one central takeaway from the December 2025 “Invoice-to-Pay Automation Tracker...
Fraud prevention is no longer defined by how many tools a merchant deploys, but by how well those tools work together across the full payment journey.
That is the central insight of PYMNTS Intelligence’s December Payments Orchestration Tracker, “Orchestrating Trust: The Future of Fraud Prevention in Payments.” The report argues that the next phase of fraud management is less about...
A key figure in the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX is nearly set to leave prison.
Caroline Ellison, a key prosecution witness during the fraud trial of FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, is scheduled to leave federal custody Jan. 21 of next year, according to records from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Ellison, 31, has been in community confinement since October, following her...
OpenAI is hiring an executive focused on AI-related risks to mental health and computer security.
Writing in an X post Saturday (Dec. 27), CEO Sam Altman said that the new “Head of Preparedness” role comes amid the rise of new challenges related to artificial intelligence (AI).
“The potential impact of models on mental health was something we saw a preview of in 2025; we are just now...
America’s retailers are reportedly unhappy with the end of penny production.
According to a recent report by Chain Store Age, the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) is calling on lawmakers to address the issue when Congress returns to D.C. next month.
The problem began earlier this year when the U.S. Treasury said it would cease minting new pennies, calling the process costly...
Student loan borrowers are seeing increased success in discharging their loans in bankruptcy court.
That’s according to a report Sunday (Dec. 28) by The New York Times (NYT), citing a study by Jason Iuliano, a professor at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law.
It found that a vast majority of student debtors who look to dismiss their loans via bankruptcy are successful...
Consumers are growing comfortable with letting artificial intelligence (AI) agents plan their vacations.
And so the world’s biggest hotel companies are working to get consumers to book directly, to help save on commission to online platforms, the Financial Times (FT) reported Saturday (Dec. 27).
The report noted that Marriott, the largest hotel company in the world, said last month...
British bank Lloyds is reportedly ending its small-business-focused invoice financing program.
The factoring program will close by the year’s end, the Financial Times (FT) reported Sunday (Dec. 28), citing two sources familiar with the matter.
The report characterizes the move as a blow to Lloyd’s smaller business clients, though one source said the bank’s factoring programs were used...