AI Can Plan the Trip but Booking Holdings Wants the Transaction
Generative AI can recommend hotels and assemble itineraries but cannot independently guarantee inventory, calculate cancellation terms, or authenticate customers. Booking Holdings executives told investors they are focusing on the commercial infrastructure side of travel transactions, including managing currency conversion and settling funds with multiple suppliers.
Payment Fraud Is Moving Upstream, and Visa Just Bought the Data to Follow It
Visa agreed to acquire behavioral-intelligence provider BioCatch for 2.4 billion dollars in cash. The acquisition gives Visa capabilities to detect fraud earlier in the payment process by analyzing customer behavior patterns before transactions occur.
Pan-African payments fintech Moment raises $22 million
Moment completed a $22 million Series A funding round led by AlphaCode Venture Partners. General Catalyst and MultiChoice continued their investment while Canal+ participated as a new investor.
NAB Tests AI Agents in Plan to Deploy Tech to Banking Customers
NAB's technology chief announced the bank will soon test security and operational guardrails for an agentic AI platform. The country's largest lenders are seeking to deploy this technology more widely to banking customers.
Paymentus Revenue Surges as Businesses Seek to Deliver Smooth Billing Experiences
Bill payment solution provider Paymentus achieved record revenue in the second quarter as service providers prioritized improving customer billing experiences. The company's CEO cited upcoming research findings during an earnings call on August 3 regarding the importance of billing and payment experiences to customer loyalty.
BBVA call centre staff develop and deploy AI agents to speed up response times
BBVA's contact centre staff in Italy and Germany developed AI assistants that reduced average handling time for common customer inquiries by over 15%. The assistants address questions about products, services, and general procedures at the bank's fully digital operations.
AI Voice Agents Take Over the Retail Sales Floor
Voice agents based on models like OpenAI's GPT-Realtime can now conduct real sales conversations and ask probing questions to adapt to shopper needs. Previously, retailers used website chatbots for two years that could answer specific questions but could not complete sales transactions.
Earnings Show Banks Chasing Mid-Market With Payments Platforms
Banks are repositioning payments and treasury technologies as more than basic infrastructure to attract mid-market clients. These platforms now emphasize capabilities for moving money, managing liquidity, and connecting corporate systems beyond their traditional background role.
Citi Recruits Bank of America Vet Rohan Sen Amid Investment Banking Hiring Spree
Citi hired Rohan Sen from Bank of America to lead technology services sector coverage in investment banking. Sen spent 11 years at Bank of America as a managing director in its technology investment banking group.
Horizon3 Secures $250 Million to Lead AI-Versus-AI Cyber Defense
Horizon3 raised $250 million in Series E funding for its NodeZero platform, which uses AI to defend against AI-driven cyberattacks. The company's valuation tripled to over $2 billion from its previous $650 million valuation approximately one year ago.
UBS Pays $125 Million to Settle US Charges of Repeated AML Failures
UBS Financial Services agreed to pay $125 million to settle violations of anti-money laundering and terrorism financing rules across four separate regulatory agreements. The settlement addresses repeated Bank Secrecy Act failures involving the CFTC and additional federal regulators.
Visa Acquires Behavioral Biometrics Innovator BioCatch for $2.4 Billion
Visa acquired behavioral biometrics company BioCatch for $2.4 billion in cash from Permira-advised funds and other shareholders. The purchase will expand Visa's existing cyber, fraud, risk, and security solutions portfolio.
Ripple invests in UK digital assets platform Licuido
Ripple has invested in UK-based digital assets platform Licuido to scale operations and develop capital markets infrastructure on the XRP Ledger. Licuido is a tokenization platform for capital markets that will use Ripple's investment to build on XRPL technology.
Stablecoins, Tokenization and Crypto: Digital Assets Thoughts of the Week
Stablecoin usage is increasing in South America, particularly Brazil, where regulators have implemented tiered controls. Brazil's Resolution 561 prohibits virtual assets from settling transactions within the regulated eFX system for cross-border payments.
Partior and OpenAssets PoC proves stablecoins and tokenised deposits can settle atomically
Partior and OpenAssets completed a proof of concept showing atomic delivery-versus-payment between digital assets, regulated stablecoins, and commercial tokenised deposits. The demonstration proved these three asset types can settle simultaneously across bank-backed global settlement infrastructure.
xStocks Crosses $600 Million Milestone in Tokenized Equities and Related Assets
The xStocks platform exceeded $600 million in assets under management across tokenized shares, exchange-traded funds, and IPO-related instruments. This growth reflects increasing adoption of blockchain-based equity exposure over the past year.
Visa Stays Neutral as Open USD Draws Comparisons to Stablecoins USDT and USDC
Visa CEO Ryan McInerney declined to position Open USD as a direct competitor to USDT or USDC stablecoins. He emphasized supporting the broader stablecoin ecosystem rather than endorsing any specific digital currency.
OpenAI Reaches 1 Billion Active Users as AI Becomes Daily Habit
OpenAI's models reached over 1 billion active users and more than 2 million businesses. Users deploy AI more frequently and deeply as they gain confidence with the technology over time.
Fed Moves to Give Mutual Banks More Flexibility to Raise Capital
The Federal Reserve proposed updating rules for mutual banks that have remained unchanged since 1993, aiming to reduce regulatory burden and increase capital-raising flexibility. The updated rules would replace regulations the Fed described as overly burdensome and complex for these banking organizations.
Project Agorá Cuts Cross-Border Payment Times to 80 Seconds
Project Agorá demonstrated that tokenized wholesale cross-border payments settle in approximately 80 seconds from initiation to completion. The Bank for International Settlements conducted real-value testing of this technology in July within a controlled environment.
AI Gives Cybersecurity a Backlog CFOs and CISOs Can’t Patch Away
AI systems are identifying software vulnerabilities at unprecedented speeds that human researchers cannot match, overwhelming organizations' capacity to remediate them. Companies lack sufficient resources to process and patch the massive volume of discovered flaws faster than new ones are being detected.
FCA Shares Update on Stablecoin Sprint
The FCA completed a Stablecoin Sprint initiative involving 75 participants from traditional finance and fintech companies to study digital currency markets. The update addressed stablecoins used for payments and transfers within the UK regulatory framework.
Western Union Pursues AI Savings as Falling Migration Hits Revenue
Western Union is increasing investment in digital and artificial intelligence technologies to offset revenue declines caused by reduced migration patterns. The company missed expected improvements in its Americas retail business during the second quarter and delayed its Intermex acquisition, postponing anticipated cost synergies.
Okta Inks Permiso Purchase to Expand Identity Threat Defense
Okta is acquiring Permiso Security to integrate identity threat detection and response capabilities into its platform. The deal will add Permiso's identity risk signals, behavioral analytics, and threat detections to Okta's existing identity management system.
Hospitals Follow Banks’ Playbook for Taming Generic AI
Sheba Medical Center partnered with OpenAI to deploy customized AI that understands the hospital's specific rules and operations. Physicians, nurses, researchers, and staff will receive secure access to an AI-powered system tailored to the hospital's needs.
MoonPay Lets AI Agents Transact with PayBox
MoonPay launched PayBox, a payment vault that allows AI agents to trade tokens, bridge assets, and conduct DeFi transactions directly within conversations. Claude and ChatGPT users with a PayBox connector can enable their AI agents to transact by describing desired actions in natural language.
CME's Duffy warns an overlooked tax risk looms over U.S. perpetual futures
CME CEO Terry Duffy warned that a pending court battle could determine whether perpetual futures are classified as swaps or futures, potentially affecting IRS taxation of these contracts. Independent legal experts agree the regulatory classification issue remains unsettled and unresolved.
Microsoft Extends Data Center Lifespans to Soften AI Buildout Costs
Microsoft is extending data center lifespans to reduce capital expenditure impacts from AI infrastructure buildout. The company reported Intelligent Cloud revenue increased 32% year over year to $39.3 billion during the quarter ended June 30.
Robinhood Takes an Option Out on Owning Customer Transactions
Robinhood is expanding beyond its traditional retail brokerage business model while reporting record second-quarter 2026 revenues. The company's chief financial officer stated the business is "firing on all cylinders" during the earnings call on Wednesday, July 29.