A banana-shaped heel is an unusual place to look for evidence of consumer spending discipline. But in luxury retail, financial restraint can apparently come with very adventurous footwear. There’s growing interest in eccentric designer shoes as shoppers seek alternatives to handbags costing more than $5,000,...
Acorns has expanded its financial education community by acquiring Frich, the company said in a Wednesday (Oct. 14) press release. Frich is a community where young Americans learn about money from each other, while Acorns is a financial wellness company, according to the release. The acquisition brings Frich’s...
As FinTechs scale, they bring banks more deposits, loans, transactions and fees while gaining more choice over which institutions provide the funding and infrastructure behind them. Upgrade facilitated more than $53 billion in credit through a model built with banks and loan buyers when it...
President Donald Trump’s artificial intelligence (AI) task force, the Super Intelligence Force, will commission a report from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to evaluate potential dangers of the technology, Bloomberg reported Thursday (Oct. 15), citing a White House account of a meeting. Thursday’s meeting was...
The hardest job at a Taco Bell during the dinner rush is the headset. One worker takes orders from a line of cars, repeats them back over road noise and fields the complaints when a Crunchwrap comes out wrong. At more than 890 Taco Bell...
A Meta and Apple partnership wasn’t on anyone’s 2026 bingo card. On Thursday (Oct. 15), the two companies, who spent most of a decade fighting over user data, announced they had worked together to run Meta’s newest AI model on Apple’s desktops. Meta released Muse...
Truist exited its third quarter with higher deposits, continued growth in consumer spending and stable underlying credit quality. An earnings call Friday (Oct. 16) indicated that the new Truist CEO, Mike Lyons, wants a larger share of customers’ primary banking relationships. Average deposits rose 3.6%...
Artificial intelligence (AI) shopping agents are forcing online retailers to reconsider how they attract customers, authorize payments and protect their relationships with shoppers, as technology companies increasingly insert themselves between merchants and buyers. Retailers are responding differently. Amazon is blocking prominent outside agents, Target is...
Watch more: Before AI Moves Money, It Must Earn Authority Agentic commerce has a payments problem hiding in plain sight. The financial system does not yet have a universal way to authenticate a machine’s authority to make a decision. And time is running out. Artificial...