#payments

#payments

If you've ever sat in front of your laptop with ten browser tabs open, each showing slightly different flight prices, you're not alone. Planning a trip can be thrilling at first. You imagine beaches, cafés, or that view from the airplane window. But the actual process? It can feel like a puzzle with too many pieces. Between flight options, hotel filters, and prices that change by the hour, it's easy to lose the excitement before the trip even begins.

This year, cash ranked as the third-most-used payment method, behind credit and debit cards, according to the Federal Reserve Financial Service's 2025 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice. And Gen Zers are leading the charge in ditching paper for plastic. Results from a Cash App/Harris Poll survey released Thursday shows more than half of Gen Z only uses cash as a "last resort" when paying, and almost a third said people who pay with cash are either "out of touch" or "cringe."

Every product team is chasing the same dream right now - smarter, faster, more "AI-powered." But in all that optimization, we forget the thing no model can predict: what it feels like to trust a system you can't see. As Kym Primrose pointed out in "AI Won't Kill UX - We Will", the real threat to user experience isn't technology itself - it's when we let convenience replace care. I see that same tension in building apps that move money: AI isn't what erodes trust.

When Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin to the world in 2008, the pseudonymous coder envisioned his decentralized currency as a reaction to the financial crisis that had paralyzed the global economy. But nearly two decades later, the once renegade crypto industry has become increasingly intertwined with Wall Street. On the latest episode of Fortune's Crypto Playbook (which you can find on Spotify, Apple, and YouTube), Citi's head of enterprise digital assets, Artem Korenyuk, says that there's increasing "synergy" between the two sectors.

In Hollywood, actors do not wait half a year to get paid. Under SAG-AFTRA contracts, residuals are distributed within 30 to 60 days of the union receiving payment from studios. That is the standard in one of the world's most complex entertainment ecosystems. Meanwhile, in the creator economy, worth $250 billion and growing, creators are still waiting 90, 120, sometimes even 180 days for money they have already earned.

According to Rajat Taneja, Visa's president of technology, the global payments company has woven AI into every part of its business. Employees across Visa are tapping AI in their everyday workflows for tasks ranging from data analysis to software development. The company has built more than 100 internal AI-powered business applications tailored to specific use cases and has over 2,500 engineers working specifically on AI. Visa is also using AI to create new products and services for its customers, such as faster onboarding, simplified processes for managing disputes, and infrastructure for agentic AI technologies.

Early Warning Service's online checkout app Paze is venturing into professional sports with a five-year partnership with the National Basketball Association's Atlanta Hawks, betting major league sports is the ticket to public awareness.

Every startup founder dreams of control. Building a sleek payment system in-house feels bold, innovative and even empowering. After all, Stripe began as a small project - why not follow the same path? The idea of owning every detail of the payment experience can be intoxicating. But behind that dream lies a reality few anticipate: endless complexity, hidden expenses and a dangerous distraction from the core product.

Innovative Systems' differentiated, platform-based solution sets it apart from competitors, providing a seamless operational experience for rural broadband and utility customers,

Despite the digital nature of our industry, the way we handle invoices is still largely manual and outdated. This effort reflects our commitment to modernizing digital advertising infrastructure, which will enable scalable, tech-forward solutions that work across platforms and stakeholders.

The Square Handheld is available today for $399, supporting traditional card transactions and tap-to-pay, scanning products, and managing inventory from a single device.

Finding a partner to support us in transforming our payment acceptance business... demonstrates clear execution of our three-year plan to become a simpler, better and more balanced bank.

"I think the approach we've taken is to, instead of kind of make AI the end goal... we kind of ask ourselves, okay, what is really our end goal as a business, right?"