Digital Currency

Open banking specialist Plaid launched Plaid Beacon, an anti-fraud network for fintechs and financial institutions. The fintech Karma Wallet has allied with card-issuing platform Marqeta Inc. to introduce a prepaid card offering cash-back rewards from merchants said to be local, ethical, and sustainable. PayEm, a spend-management platform, has integrated with American Express to allow …

Merchants using the Shoplazza online-commerce platform can accept payments via Citcon’s technology following an integration between the two companies. A Swiss-Israeli company called Okoora launched Automatic Business Currency Management, an integrated platform for global payments, banking, and risk management. The 10-year-old cryptocurrency-payments platform Wyre said it is shutting down and advised users to withdraw their assets …

The Canada-based commerce platform Shopify announced it has added the payments gateway Volt, allowing Shopify merchants in Europe, the United Kingdom, and Brazil to process real-time account-to-account payments. In related news, payments platform Netevia announced updates to its banking-services features, including free account-to-account transfers. The free period extends until the end of the year. …

Vontier Corp. said its Retail Solutions unit will provide cloud-based payments technology for Shell Oil Co. at more than 13,000 service stations by the end of next year. The U.S. unit of the big cryptocurrency exchange Binance said it will suspend dollar transactions as early as June 13 following word from partners they …

The Securities and Exchange Commission sued cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, alleging the company operates as an unregistered broker. The suit comes on the heels of a similar SEC action against Coinbase competitor Binance. U.S.-based stablecoin platform Circle Internet Financial LLC said its Circle Singapore affiliate obtained a Major Payment Institution license from the Monetary …

J.P. Morgan launched its Payments Partner Network, a cloud-based online marketplace for payments providers integrated with the banking giant’s payments platform. The marketplace’s technology is supported by Salesforce. Five-year-old cryptocurrency-wallet provider Magic raised $52 million in a funding round led by PayPal Ventures. The round brings Magic’s total raise to $80 million. Digital …

Some 38% of U.S. small businesses have tried generative AI tools—27% for fun and another 11% to run their businesses—according to an April survey of 1,003 businesses by Web-site provider and payments platform GoDaddy Inc. Such payments companies as Stripe Inc. have incorporated chatGPT, a form of generative AI, to support their …

U.S. investment managers have grown bullish about Bitcoin’s prospects despite recent events that have roiled digital-currency markets, research released Wednesday indicates. Feeding the renewed optimism are prospects for “improved regulation” and expectations of a “recovery in valuations” for Bitcoin, according to the research, in which 30 major investment managers were …

Blockchain company Ripple unveiled its Ripple CBDC Platform, technology supporting central banks, governments, and financial institutions in issuing central bank digital currencies. More than 90% of the world’s countries are at some stage of development toward a CBDC, according to the Atlantic Council. Matera, a U.S.-based instant payment and QR code technology …

It’s a laurel, of sorts, that financial firms would like to rebuff. They sustained the largest share of phishing attacks in the fourth quarter, accounting for 27.7% of all attacks, followed by the broad “other” category at 18.2%, and webmail, software-as-a-service at 17.7%. That’s according to the Phishing Activity Trends …