Drones, Diamonds and the Ultra-Extravagant Impulse Buy

by PYMNTS | Jan 3, 2026 | Client experience, Conversion

Somewhere between the last peppermint latte and the first “dry January” seltzer, the consumer psyche performs an elegant pivot: from recovering to romancing. Valentine’s Day is the annual reminder that love may be priceless, but the surrounding ecosystem is extremely...

The Battle for the AI Orchestration Layer Heats Up

by PYMNTS | Jan 2, 2026 | Client experience, Conversion

By 2025, the financial services sector stopped “testing” artificial intelligence and started living in it. The industry has moved past the novelty of generative chatbots to a more profound structural reality: the redesign of the global movement of money around...

Executives Say AI Redefines Value and the Payments Landscape

by PYMNTS | Dec 29, 2025 | Client experience, Conversion

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...

Embedded Finance Becomes a Competitive Equalizer for SMBs

by PYMNTS | Dec 26, 2025 | Client experience, Conversion

Embedded finance made its mark as a capability advantage for large retailers and digital-native platforms. By streamlining checkout, offering branded payment products and monetizing customer relationships, mid-market and enterprise retailers were able to scale their...

Fraud Orchestration Strengthens Trust Across the Payment Flow

by Ashley McLeod | Dec 12, 2025 | Client experience, Conversion

Fraud prevention is no longer a single tool or team; it’s a coordinated ecosystem. As digital transactions scale and fraud tactics evolve, fraud orchestration has emerged as the missing layer connecting risk signals, verification systems and payment gateways. This...

AI Agents Shift Power From Marketing to Metadata

by PYMNTS | Dec 11, 2025 | Client experience, Conversion

Merchants have spent much of the eCommerce era obsessed over understanding a single buyer: the human at the other end of a screen, swayed by brand storytelling, emotional triggers, intuitive design, and social proof. But a second customer class has quickly and...