That’s quickly changed.

Consumer expectations, technological advancements and shifting market dynamics are redefining what it means to be a bank. This backdrop has accelerated the ongoing shift toward consumer-centric banking, where individuals seek the freedom to bank when, where and how they want. Gone are the days of being tethered to branch hours; instead, consumers demand seamless digital experiences that transcend traditional banking channels. 

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The decision came after Coinbase asked the court to dismiss the SEC’s complaint, CNBC reported Wednesday.

The SEC’s suit, which was filed in June, alleges that Coinbase was acting as an unregistered broker and exchange and demands that the company be stopped from doing so, according to the report.

“[T]he court finds that the SEC adequately alleges that Coinbase, through its staking program, engaged in the unregistered offer and sale of securities,” U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla wrote in her ruling.

In the same ruling, the judge dismissed another of the SEC’s claims: that Coinbase acted as an unregistered broker by offering its wallet application, per the report.

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One of the most significant advancements lie in the integration of digital tools and solutions aimed at streamlining medication access and delivery. This shift holds promise, particularly for older adults seeking convenience, accessibility and affordability in their healthcare journey.

One of the latest developments in this space comes from Amazon Pharmacy, which recently expanded its same-day delivery service for prescription medication to encompass New York City and the greater Los Angeles area, adding to its coverage in five cities. 

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According to James Mirfin, senior vice president and global head of risk and identity solutions at Visa, fraud levels within its own network are relatively low — at around 7 cents per $100. But fraudsters continue to find new ways to attack transactions. Social engineering has become a key attack vector, where businesses and financial institutions (FIs) can be duped by fraudsters posing as legitimate customers, as phishing scams and business email compromise scams gain ground.

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While this evolution reflects broader changes in the business landscape driven by technological advancements, globalization and an increasingly complex regulatory environment, it is also reflected in the changing nature of the roles and daily responsibilities of top executives, particularly the chief financial officer.

“The role of the CFO has come more to the forefront,” LiquidX CFO Abhishek Khandelwal told PYMNTS for the “Day in the Life of a CFO” series.

Given the challenges within the contemporary macro backdrop, firms are increasingly focused on optimizing their growth from a cost and revenue perspective, and that “brings the role of the CFO to the forefront, doing exactly what we are supposed to do,” Khandelwal said.

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Financial crime is a Hydra-headed monster, constantly finding new ways to breach defenses. From sophisticated phishing attacks to the manipulation of digital transactions, fraudsters are on the lookout for the next loophole to exploit.

The staggering amount lost to fraud and scams globally, which surpasses other forms of financial crimes, underscores the severity of the issue.

“It’s three times the rest of financial crime combined,” Robin Lee, general manager of APAC at Hawk AI, told PYMNTS.

What is increasingly prolific, Lee added, is the rise of “scam centers” where hundreds of individuals are coerced into conducting scams against neighboring countries.

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Despite the increasingly sophisticated weapons fraudsters have on hand to execute their scams, social engineering tactics remain one of their most effective ploys.

This, as a study published Thursday (Feb. 29) by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin found that at least $75 billion in cryptocurrency alone — far more than had been previously estimated — was stolen between 2020 and 2024 due mostly to a particular kind of behavioral fraud known as “pig butchering.” 

Pig butchering scams are named after the practice of farmers fattening up their livestock before slaughtering them. The victim is the pig, while the bad actors are the butchers. 

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But it should be more widely used by companies looking to battle fraudsters — particularly by U.S. merchants looking to expand beyond their domestic markets.

“3DS,” he said, “is viewed differently in the United States.”

Part of the issue is the fact that the U.S. and other markets differ sharply in how 3DS is being implemented. In Europe and India, for example, which are regulated markets, 3DS is mandatory. The U.S. has made 3DS optional. In Europe, merchants have leaned into using 3DS — because they’ve had to.

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And despite the rise of digital payments methods, Richard Wazacz, CEO at foreign exchange company Travelex, tells PYMNTS that the continued use of cash as the primary payment method for cross-border travel is fueling the increase in travel industry revenue.

“Cash is seen as a trusted mode of payment when you travel across borders,” Wazacz said. “A lot of payment methods are still very domestic or national-based, and consumers who rely on cash have the confidence that it will always work wherever they are in the world.”

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And now, with artificial intelligence thrown into the mix, there have never been more opportunities — or capabilities — at hand to bridge the gap between available data and actionable insights.

That’s particularly true given the backdrop of today’s increasingly data-rich landscape, where digital transformations are turning company data once locked away under technical debt into tactical advantages.

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The risk that PayPal wants to address is that of hackers stealing cookies containing authentication tokens to log into victim accounts without the need for valid credentials and bypassing two-factor authentication (2FA).

"The theft of cookies is a sophisticated form of cyberattack, where an attacker steals or copies cookies from a victim's computer onto the attacker's web browser," PayPal says in the patent application.

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In the first week of January, the pharmaceutical giant Merck quietly settled its years-long lawsuit over whether or not its property and casualty insurers would cover a $700 million claim filed after the devastating NotPetya cyberattack in 2017. The malware ultimately infected more than 40,000 of Merck’s computers, which significantly disrupted the company’s drug and vaccine production. After Merck filed its $700 million claim, the pharmaceutical giant’s insurers argued that they were not required to cover the malware’s damage because the cyberattack was widely attributed to the Russian government and therefore was excluded from standard property and casualty insurance coverage as a “hostile or warlike act.”

At the heart of the lawsuit was a crucial question: Who should pay for massive, state-sponsored cyberattacks that cause billions of dollars’ worth of damage?

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More than two decades into the 21st century, the banking landscape is now undergoing an evolution driven by the rise of digital banking.

“The COVID-19 pandemic forced everybody onto digital channels, and we’re not seeing people revert back,” Eric Brandt, senior strategic market analyst at NCR Voyix, told PYMNTS.

The crisis acted as a catalyst, compelling customers to adopt digital channels for various banking activities, a trend that continues even as the world moves beyond the pandemic. Digital adoption rates remain high, and customers are increasingly comfortable performing tasks online, from depositing checks to checking their balances and transferring funds.

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It is said that the average person makes 35,000 decisions a day. Some, like whether to have oatmeal or eggs for breakfast, don’t carry a big downside risk since both are healthy food choices.

Others may.

Nearly three-quarters of executives surveyed recently said the number of business decisions they make daily has increased 10X over the last three years; 59% said they don’t feel confident making at least one of them.

More data isn’t always the answer, which many executives say can overwhelm and confuse rather than clear the path.

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After all, it was over a century and a half ago that Charles Darwin first wrote that “the species most responsive to change” is the one that survives — and while he was talking about evolutionary biology, the truth captured is universal. That principle can be equally applied to B2B payments as to the finches of the Galapagos.

That’s particularly as it relates to the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in optimizing accounts receivable (AR) processes.

“You can look at AI in two lenses, internal efficiencies and external product and then break that down into where the low-hanging fruit is,” Ahsan Shah, senior vice president of analytics and AI at Billtrust, told PYMNTS.

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“The expectation with instant payments is that they are frictionless,” he said. “It’s all about the end user.”

Real-time payments have been a reality over The Clearing House’s RTP Network for the past seven years and across the Federal Reserve’s FedNow® Service since July. Each system has its adherents, with hundreds of financial institutions signed up to one or the other, and sometimes both.

But as it stands, payments initiated on one rail must travel and settle across the same rail — confined to RTP or FedNow. A payment or remittance can’t travel from a bank on one system and land with a bank on another system.

Barnes likened the situation to the mobile phone landscape a few decades ago, where Verizon subscribers could not call someone on the AT&T network. That changed over time. We’re headed to the same flexibility with instant payments.

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In both accounts payable and accounts receivable, STP can transform the way payments are sent, collected, and reconciled by reducing manual interventions and errors while streamlining data sharing.

“If you feel a bit breathless, I think the whole industry does, too, in terms of the rates of change that keep accelerating,” he said.

For Visa, its issuers and their corporate clients, tracking the future of payments and laying the groundwork boils down to just a few focal points. It’s no use trying to boil the proverbial ocean with 100 priorities, he said.

“I call them the ‘big five,’” said Koenigsberg. And with the quintet as a roadmap, companies can seek proactively to change their business models and meet their customers where they want to be met.

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PSCU Chief Growth Officer Brian Scott told PYMNTS that the groundwork was laid a few years ago as financial institutions (FIs) — and especially credit unions — began creating and issuing contactless cards at scale and educating consumers on how to use them. The pandemic was instrumental in steering people to consider ways to pay that didn’t involve handing their cards back and forth amid public health concerns.

Scott told PYMNTS that — as we look toward what’s next in payments technologies — consumers have given a roadmap as to what they want, and what they want is to have payments be simple and intuitive.

“Contactless payments have been incredibly impactful,” he said of the present environment, adding that “the consumers using contactless consistently are using cards more often as their primary payment device.”

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The report found that ransomware typically follows seasonal patterns, with incidents decreasing in early May and remaining low through early August. Driven largely by CL0P, this year’s dip in attacks occurred later in June and, rather than continuing to fall, spiked and remained high through the first half of August. Even without CL0P, ransomware activity would still amount to a 70% year-over-year increase.

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