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Company

PYMNTS Intelligence

Research division of PYMNTS, a payments and commerce news outlet, producing data-driven studies and indices on consumer and business payment trends.

Known aliases

  • PYMNTS
  • pymnts.com

Current stories

productConfirmed5 publishers

Natura's $99 Interface ring takes agent requests and hands the answers to a phone or headphones

Natura's $99 Interface ring sends finger-press voice requests to AI agents such as Claude, ChatGPT and Meta's Muse. A monthly fee follows a free period, so the ring tests whether people will pay a subscription to reach their agents without picking up a phone.

Perspective Coverage

6 publishers
Builder
Builder 29%
Operator
Operator 43%
Investor
Investor 28%

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption2
Hype gap+45
Incentives70
Confidence55
investOne report1 publisher

Mastercard spreads its cross-border stablecoin bet across OUSD, USDC and BVNK

Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach said Oct. 9 that cross-border payments are stablecoins' strongest use, citing OUSD, a coin Visa and Stripe also back. His biggest stablecoin deal, up to $1.8 billion for BVNK per Crypto Briefing, buys tools to hold and convert whichever coin businesses pick.

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption25
Hype gap+20
Incentives70
Confidence55
investOne report1 publisher

Walmart asks a critic of its pricing patents to correct her public statements

Walmart's Dan Bartlett wrote an open letter on Oct. 5 accusing think tank head Lindsay Owens of repeatedly misrepresenting how the retailer sets prices. It went out on the first day of Walmart's Deal Days, the week it most needs shoppers to believe its prices.

Publishers:pymnts.com

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption25
Hype gap+10
Incentives65
Confidence45
investOne report1 publisher

Neobank fraud budgets grew 357%, roughly as fast as the volume their loss rates imply

Neobanks and fintechs raised fraud-prevention spending 357% in a year to $8 million per institution, according to PYMNTS Intelligence. Measured against the transaction value implied by the group's own loss rate, that budget held near 2 basis points of volume in both years.

Publishers:pymnts.com

Reality

Evidence45
Adoption70
Hype gap+30
Incentives60
Confidence45
investConfirmed2 publishers

Basware buys Trustpair to check the supplier bank accounts behind approved invoices

Basware has closed its purchase of fraud checker Trustpair, adding supplier bank-account checks to an invoice platform with more than 6,500 customers. Trustpair will keep running independently and selling to companies outside Basware, so finance teams can still buy the payment check without the invoice software.

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives65
Confidence60
investOne report1 publisher

Waymo turns a Visa card's transit taps into $2.85 of Waymo Cash

Waymo will give Bay Area riders $2.85 in Waymo Cash when one linked Visa card pays for a Waymo trip and a transit fare within two hours, across 27 agencies. The card proves both rides happened, and the payout stays in Waymo's own credit.

Publishers:pymnts.com

Reality

Evidence40
Adoption10
Hype gap+35
Incentives55
Confidence45
investOne report1 publisher

Fifty-eight percent of US card switchers promoted a card they already held

PYMNTS Intelligence counts 78 million US adults, 36% of cardholders, changing their primary card inside 24 months, and most of the winning cards were already open. Account counts hold steady and the interchange moves.

Publishers:pymnts.com

Reality

Evidence42
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+18
Incentives62
Confidence48
investOne report1 publisher

Docusign cut per-document AI cost 50-fold by routing most work to models it trained itself

A Microsoft case study credits Docusign's swap to small task-specific models with 90% lower cost and eight times the throughput. Docusign's own accounting of the whole pipeline claims 50 times cheaper per document.

Publishers:pymnts.com

Reality

Evidence42
Adoption62
Hype gap+24
Incentives80
Confidence55
investOne report1 publisher

Continuous settlement moves treasury's binding constraint from the clock to the ruleset

Citi's live dollar transactions with First Abu Dhabi Bank and OCBC, and SoFi's tie-up with Kraken's parent, both removed a cutoff time, which leaves CFOs deciding what software may release at 2am Sunday.

Publishers:pymnts.com

Reality

Evidence42
Adoption24
Hype gap+28
Incentives58
Confidence40
investOne report1 publisher

Brink's puts the ATM overstock at 30% to 40% of total cash demand

The cut Brink's advertises arrives without the vault balance it applies to, has to survive a 15% average forecast error from another vendor, and lands while the Federal Reserve still counts cash at 14% of US payments.

Publishers:pymnts.com

Reality

Evidence36
Adoption27
Hype gap+44
Incentives74
Confidence41
investOne report1 publisher

Amazon's clothing share doubled to 17%. Walmart's is still under its 2019 mark

Six years of one-way drift in US apparel, still widening through mid-2026. Walmart's triple-digit brand comps have not shown up in its category line.

Publishers:pymnts.com

Reality

Evidence57
Adoption74
Hype gap−6
Incentives46
Confidence55
investOne report1 publisher

Helcim raises $38M on a bet that Canada's big banks are done with merchant acquiring

The Calgary company's Series C is pitched to credit unions as deposit defence. The evidence that the banks are exiting comes from the firm raising money against it.

Publishers:pymnts.com

Reality

Evidence24
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+46
Incentives82
Confidence33
investOne report1 publisher

The commute is the wage cut: 15% of fuel-hit shift workers are turning down work

A June 2026 PYMNTS Intelligence and WorkWhile index finds 64% of fuel-affected hourly workers have changed how or whether they work. The posted rate is not the price they are evaluating.

Publishers:pymnts.com

Reality

Evidence42
Adoption
Not scored
Hype gap+22
Incentives74
Confidence38