Citigroup Inc.’s U.S. consumer-cards business says it will acquire card-marketing specialist Kard Financial Inc., while card issuer processor platform Lithic pairs with Monavate and online-gaming specialist Grandstand Ltd. issues a high-limit debit card. Citi, which has not disclosed terms of its deal, says New York City-based Kard provides personalized rewards …

Just one year since its launch, the Zelle tag, a personalized identifier to make it easier for small businesses to accept Zelle payments, is in use with more than 1 million small businesses and has an average daily enrollment of 3,500 in the first two quarters of 2026, Zelle says. …

Created as part of the Corporate Transparency Act in 2021, a rule that required millions of U.S. small businesses to report their ownership structures to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, will officially end following a final rule from FinCEN. The original reporting rule, meant to combat money laundering …

Small businesses dominate the U.S. economy, and two payments companies are taking steps to ensure they offer relevant services. First, Square added 3% cash back on Square Bill Pay transactions and the ability to pay vendors even if they don’t accept cards. And, with J.P. Morgan Payments’ backing, Dream Payments …

As artificial intelligence continues to make gains in consumers’ purchasing decisions, most are not quite ready to fully trust an AI agent to make a purchase on their behalf, with just 35% globally wanting human approval before an AI completes a purchase, finds a new report from RTB House. Released …

Account-to-account payments are about to meet the agentic-commerce age with a new partnership between Sionic, a bank-to-bank payments provider, and Agentix, an agentic-commerce technology firm. In the deal, Atlanta-based Sionic will supply an artificial-intelligence shopping agent with its Bank Perks to enable payment directly from a user’s bank account. Bank …

Ask Maps brings artificial-intelligence commands to Google Maps, with Square and Toast Inc. among the first point-of-sale system companies to enable agentic food ordering within Maps. Google is integrating elements of its Gemini AI engine into its Maps product to enable users to ask for complex, multi-step tasks such as …

Swift, a financial-messaging platform, said its new international money-transfer service is now live in the United States, with Bank of America Corp. and J.P. Morgan online with the service. The move follows recent launches in Canada and Germany. Swift says the new service will show recipients the full transaction amount …

As more consumers consider how artificial-intelligence services can help with the shopping experience, payments and commerce providers are preparing. Minty, an AI shopping app, is now available to merchants on the Shopify Inc. platform. And, Pie Tech Inc. has received more funding, this time from Amex Ventures, to help merchants …

Online merchants have built their e-commerce sites for human interaction, but the expected increase in artificial-intelligence shopping agents will require a new focus on data, says an IDC report commissioned by WooCommerce. Released Monday, the report forecasts that AI use will move $500 billion in digital spending to AI agents …