10-Q,
Member Exclusive
- Four big bank developments dominated headlines this week: one focused on small businesses, two on AI innovation, and one quashing an acquisition rumor.
- These moves suggest the largest US banks are reorganizing around a thesis: identifying where value is now created and how distant they are from fully internalizing it.
Sara Khairi | April 06, 2026
Banking,
Data,
Member Exclusive
- Client–bank relationships have long revolved around a destination model: clients log in, navigate dashboards, export data, assemble insights. Grasshopper Bank is rewriting that dynamic by moving from a destination to a ‘layer’.
- The digital bank has launched its MCP server to bridge a critical gap: letting clients use modern AI tools with their financial data without sacrificing banking security or control.
Sara Khairi | April 02, 2026
Payments,
Podcasts
- The digital wallet space is crowded, but Paze is betting that consumer trust in banks — not tech giants — is the unlock.
- In this episode, Serge Elkiner, General Manager of Paze at Early Warning Services, breaks down how the bank-backed wallet is building toward critical mass through merchant expansion, issuer growth, and a deliberate focus on the consumers other wallets haven't won yet.
Zack Miller | April 01, 2026
Artificial Intelligence,
Business of Fintech,
Payments
- Stripe is making moves to dominate every layer of payments, from a potential PayPal acquisition to AI billing tools and stablecoin infrastructure.
- Stripe processed $1.9T in volume, its new AI billing tool tracks LLM usage in real time, and its x402 integration lets AI agents send and receive stablecoin payments autonomously.
Rabab Ahsan | March 31, 2026
10-Q,
Member Exclusive
- At a time when payment winners must command either infrastructure or interface, PayPal is awkwardly positioned between the two.
- The questions now are: Where does PayPal sit in the payments ecosystem, and does that position still matter? What unique role does it play in a stack that increasingly bypasses middle layers?
Sara Khairi | March 30, 2026
