Today in the Connected Economy: JPMorgan’s Forecast Uncertain

Today in the connected economy, J.P. Morgan Chase reserves $428 million in additional funds to cover bad loans while posting a 28% drop in profits. Plus, buy now, pay later (BNPL) provider Affirm and ticketing company SeatGeek team to help fans pay for tickets, and payments platform Stripe begins a partnership with influencers.

JPMorgan Ups Loan Loss Reserves Amid Uncertain Consumer Outlook

J.P. Morgan Chase has reserved $428 million in additional funds to cover bad loans while also temporarily shelving share buybacks as the country’s large bank posted a 28% drop in profits in the second quarter from a year earlier. In the bank’s second-quarter earnings release, Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon said a combination of record inflation, weaker consumer confidence, and geopolitical tension have led to an uncertain global economy and consumer outlook.

BNPL Provider Affirm Teams With Ticket Platform SeatGeek

BNPL provider Affirm and ticketing platform SeatGeek are working together to give fans more ways to access live entertainment. When fans pick Affirm at checkout, they can choose billing options for their tickets that range from monthly installments to four interest-free, biweekly payments.

Influencer Marketing Platform LTK Teams With Stripe to Pay Creators Instantly

Influencer marketing platform LTK is working with Stripe to fuel instant payments to creators on the LTK Connect self-serve solution. LTK said the partnership will reduce the time between creators’ completed work and payment from months to seconds.

EQ Bank Teams With Open Banking Platform Flinks

EQ Bank, a member of Canada’s Equitable Bank group, has partnered with Montreal-based open banking platform Flinks to let EQ customers share their financial data securely with third-party FinTech apps. With this collaboration and the integration of open banking environment Flinks Outbound, EQ Bank can deliver flexible open banking capabilities and launch and operate new application programming interface (API) data sharing methods.

Digital Banking Platform Clair, Criterion Team to Offer on-Demand Pay

Digital banking platform Clair is collaborating with human capital management (HCM) software company Criterion to provide free on-demand pay to Criterion employees and clients. Connecticut-based Criterion will begin the partnership with the launch of Clair On-Demand Pay for all its users later this year.

Dairy Industry Uses Data to Speed Delivery of Perishable Products

Dairy supply chain software company Milk Moovmenent has raised $20 million in a Series A round to boost product development and adoption of its tech platform in North America. CEO and Co-Founder Robert Forsythe spoke to PYMNTS from a dairy conference in Syracuse, New York, where he said, “the problems that we hear are … there’s still a lot of pen and paper and a lot of paper milk tickets going around the dairy industry.”