Competitive Strategies

Point-of-sale platform Lightspeed Commerce Inc. narrowed its first-quarter loss to $2.4 million from $49.6 million a year prior. Lightspeed reported its fiscal first quarter earnings ended June 30 with $322.7 million in revenue, up 5.8% from $305 million a year ago. In 2025, Lightspeed embarked on a two-pronged POS-based plan to improve its performance. …

Apple Inc. and Klarna AB are launching a new lease program called Apple Upgrade for Apple devices that sees consumers apply for a Klarna account. Consumers will use the Klarna app to monitor their Apple Upgrade account. Initially rumored last week, the now verified program offers users 12- and 24-month …

X said it has become the first U.S. social-media platform to embed FDIC-insured, interest-bearing accounts, a Visa debit card, and other payments services. The move arises from a link between X Money and Cross River Bank. Working with equipifi, a buy now, pay later platform provider for financial institutions, MIT Federal Credit …

Business-to-business payments were one of the first use cases for instant payments when the RTP network from The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC debuted in 2017. As more businesses and consumers want to use such services, the use cases are evolving, with digital wallets—like PayPal and Venmo—now being the largest …

Flexible Finance Inc. announced it has submitted applications to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Utah Department of Financial Institutions for a charter for Flex Bank, a Utah state-chartered industrial bank. Flexible Finance is the company behind Flex Rent, which says it has processed more than $40 billion in rent payments for …

Payments provider Kurv is applying the notion of all-in-one access not just for its merchants, but for its sales agents, too, with the release of Kurv Agent. The online portal contains several tools that agents might have had to access one-by-one. Among the suite of tools is the ability to …