Capital One’s first quarter results showed consumers continue to spend on their cards — and management touted the benefits of the proposed $35 billion buyout of Discover Financial Services. Purchase volume on its cards was up 6% year over year to $146.6 billion, but was 7% below the fourth quarter of 2023. The company’s supplementals showed that the card segment’s net charge-off rate of 5.9% is up from 4% a year ago. Consumer banking average loans decreased $1.1 billion, or 2%, to $75.1 billion. CEO Richard Fairbank noted on the call that card loan balances were up 10% year over year, as ..read more

Snapchat parent company Snap believes that augmented reality (AR) will be “one of the most meaningful advancements in computing that the world has ever seen.” Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap, said this Thursday (April 25) during the company’s quarterly earnings call. He said that Snap considers AR to be one of the company’s three strategic priorities, alongside revenue growth and community growth. “We have never worked on anything as profound and meaningful as augmented reality,” Spiegel said during the call. “AR enables us to surface digital experiences seamlessly in the world around ..read more

In Walmart’s sprawling distribution centers, a quiet change is underway. The retail behemoth is preparing to deploy a fleet of 19 autonomous electric forklifts across four of its facilities, marking a significant step forward in integrating AI-powered robots into industrial settings.   As these machines take on the repetitive and strenuous tasks of moving goods, they offer a glimpse into a future where technology and human labor intertwine to create a more efficient and streamlined supply chain. These AI-driven systems are delivering improvements in oper ..read more

TikTok owner ByteDance would reportedly rather shut down the social media platform than sell it. That’s what the firm plans to do if it is unsuccessful in its legal efforts to fight legislation that would ban TikTok from app stores in the United States if it is not sold, Reuters reported Thursday (April 25), citing unnamed sources. ByteDance considers TikTok’s algorithms to be a core part of the company’s overall operations, so it is unlikely to sell the app and those algorithms, according to the report. The company posted Thursday on another one of its social media pl ..read more

Digital transformation is the name of the game — and that’s great news for Microsoft. The company, which reported its Fiscal Year 2024 Q3 earnings results on Thursday (April 25), has seen ongoing enterprise digitization fuel a greater appetite across the business landscape for innovations like artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud services — innovations that Microsoft is more than happy to provide to its customers. “Microsoft Copilot and Copilot stack are orchestrating a new era of AI transformation, driving better business outcomes across every role and industry,” said Satya Nadella, ch ..read more

Digital platforms are transforming the personal finance landscape for renters by emphasizing the importance of leveraging nuanced insights derived from rental payment data, a facet traditionally excluded from credit scoring models.  Among the firms driving this transformation is EasyKnock, a home equity solution platform, which recently partnered with Piñata to offer its customers access to reward and credit-building programs.  Through this collaboration, EasyKnock customers can now benefit from on-time rent payments being reported to credit bureaus, thus enabling them ..read more

Mastercard is introducing a card issuance function for its FinTech Express platform.  The payments giant made that announcement Thursday (April 25) as part of a broader rollout of enhancements to FinTech Express and its Engage program.  The idea, the company said in a news release, is to make “it even easier for FinTechs and enablers to partner with Mastercard to quickly build and deploy solutions globally.” According to the release, Engage — a program launched seven years ago — now includes a self-service portal that allows FinTechs to access exclusive resources, increase brand ..read more

Stripe is bringing back crypto payments after stopping them in 2018. John Collison, co-founder of Stripe, said in a Thursday (April 25) post on X (formerly Twitter): “Crypto is back.” Crypto is back. @Stripe will start supporting global stablecoin payments this summer. Transactions instantly settle on-chain and automatically convert to fiat. Join the waitlist https://t.co/hws2OsU3Id and watch the demo (h/t @Solana) from Sessions. pic.twitter.com/zGKYW2FM6i — John Collison (@collision) April 25, 2024 Collison said in the post that Stripe will start supporting global stablecoin payme ..read more

Split-payment or installment plans such as buy now, pay later (BNPL) enable consumers to shop more strategically, buying items one day and paying for them with a set schedule of payments over time to better manage their budgets.  According to PYMNTS Intelligence’s “Divided, Not Conquered: Acquirer and Merchant Confusion Clouds Split-Payments Landscape” report, a collaboration with Splitit, this approach to shopping has proven to be a big hit with consumers, with 3 in 5 of them telling us they used some split-payment option at least once in the last year.  The plans have proven t ..read more

Come for the comments about AI. Stay for the earnings call. That will most likely be the pattern of big tech earnings over the next two weeks as companies prioritize technology over financial reporting. It was the case when Meta reported Wednesday (April 24). And it was the case for Alphabet when it reported its Q1 earnings on Thursday (April 25). By the numbers, the company rode its traditional revenue drivers of search, cloud and YouTube to an operating income jump of 46% year over year, to $25.47 billion. But after Meta stock got hit with investors frustrated over the company’s $30 bil ..read more