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MARCH 10, 2026 |
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Supply and demand: True or false? Retailer demand for tokenized payments is higher than what banks currently offer. |
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE |
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OpenAI will reportedly scale back in-chat Instant Checkout plans for ChatGPT, per the Information. Instead, the company is pursuing a model where users check out via third-party apps that plug into the platform. |
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Deprioritizing in-chat checkout suggests consumer adoption of conversational commerce and agentic commerce is weaker than AI and payment companies anticipated. |
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However, this doesn’t mean that consumers aren’t using AI while shopping: 64% of consumers now use AI tools for product discovery, per generative engine optimization (GEO) firm The Rank Collective. |
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DIGITAL BANKING |
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LendingTree, an online financial services marketplace, announced Q4 and full-year 2025 earnings last week. The company reported $319.7 million in revenues and net income of $144.7 million. The consumer and insurance segments drove revenues and profit, while LendingTree’s home lending business lagged. |
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On the earnings call, management argued against the idea that large language models (LLMs) could disintermediate LendingTree’s marketplace, but they’re thinking about how to take advantage of LLMs and agentic AI. |
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Management noted that genAI-enabled tools are important to increase traffic. They’re tracking website visits from AI platforms and planning how to stay visible as search moves toward conversational interfaces and the value of traditional SEO declines. |
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DIGITAL PAYMENTS |
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Banco Santander and Mastercard have successfully executed Europe's first end-to-end payment initiated and completed by an artificial intelligence system without human intervention, per AI News. |
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The transaction—which was processed on Santander's live banking infrastructure using Mastercard's Agent Pay framework—marks a significant step toward wider AI-enabled financial operations. |
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The pilot was carried out under strict security, governance, and compliance rules within Santander's live infrastructure, though it is not yet available for public use.
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The AI agent worked within predefined customer and bank limits to confirm autonomous systems can initiate, authorize, and complete transactions while meeting standard legal and operational banking requirements. |
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REPORT |
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Stablecoins promise faster, cheaper payments with built-in programmability. Institutional backing and regulatory clarity are accelerating momentum—but consumer trust, fragmentation, and bank risks still stand in the way of mainstream adoption. |
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Key question: What are stablecoins, and what are the key areas of growth for the payment method? |
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Key stat: Total stablecoin market cap more than doubled between January 2023 and January 2026 to reach $308.55 billion, per DeFiLlama, reflecting the explosion of institutional buy-in for the digital asset class. |
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(EMARKETER subscription required to read the full report) |
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CHART OF THE WEEK |
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Key stat: Over a third (34%) of Gen Z adults have no emergency savings, according to May 2025 data from Bankrate. | | | |
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