News

Artificial Intelligence
Samsung to Expand Connected Kitchen Efforts With AI Food Recommendations
August 25, 2023

Samsung is looking to cement its role in consumers’ day-to-day food routines, gearing up to launch an artificial intelligence (AI) food recommendation platform. The South Korea-based company will introduce its “Samsung Food” technology at IFA 2023, a global consumer electronics trade fair held in Berlin...

B2B Payments
Digital Wallet Belo Launches Web Platform for B2B Cross-Border Payments
August 25, 2023

Digital wallet Belo has launched a web platform to help businesses make cross-border transactions.  This initiative allows companies from 108 countries to open a free account on Belo, enabling them to make transactions in pesos and cryptocurrencies and send dollars to foreign accounts, Contxto reported Thursday (Aug. 24)....

Social Commerce
Partners Coffee: Shifting Social Media Landscape Demands New D2C Strategies
August 25, 2023

Amid rapid changes in social media, Partners Coffee noted that, for smaller, direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, marketing on these platforms is becoming less and less worthwhile compared to more direct communication. In an interview with PYMNTS, Andrew Costaris, director of customer experience at the coffee roaster, which operates a...

International
Spanish Official Suggests Tools to Mitigate Digital Euro’s Unintended Consequences
August 25, 2023

Before making a final decision on the potential launch of a digital euro, the European Central Bank (ECB) must assess the impact of a digital euro on the euro zone’s banking system. So said Spain’s deputy central bank governor, Margarita Delgado, in a speech in which she emphasized...

Retail
Burlington Finds Product Assortment Resonates With Off-Price Consumer Demographic 
August 25, 2023

Cash-crunched consumers looking for deals on off-price brands helped propel Burlington Stores to an almost double-digit sales increase, the company said Thursday (Aug. 24).  Burlington Stores revealed that its fiscal 2023 second-quarter total sales grew by 9% year over year (YoY), to $2.17 billion. Comparable...

Retail
Dollar Tree’s Consumables Strike a Chord with Affluent Shoppers 
August 25, 2023

As consumers increasingly change their buying habits toward consumables, Dollar Tree appears to be profiting from this trend. Customers see Dollar Tree and Family Dollar as appealing places to make value-driven purchases.  During the retailer’s first-quarter earnings call on Thursday (Aug. 23), CEO Rick Dreiling noted that Dollar Tree...

Digital Banking
Consumers Want FIs to Deliver Real-Time Financial Data
August 25, 2023

Serena Smith, chief client officer at i2c, told PYMNTS in a recent interview that although digital innovations in banking have come a long way in just a few short years, “There’s still a long way to go.” Much in the way 9/11 forced financial services...

Artificial Intelligence
Companies and Regulators Scramble to Counter the Threat of AI Deception
August 25, 2023

How do we decide whether a human, artificial intelligence (AI) or a combination of the two created a piece of text? Some studies find that more than half of individuals cannot accurately identify content made by AI chatbots such as ChatGPT. The implication for regulators,...

Retail
Amazon Poised to Overtake Walmart in Health and Beauty Spending
August 25, 2023

Amazon’s strategy of overtaking Walmart in key retail categories may finally come to fruition. The competition between the world’s top two retailers for shares of consumer spend is fierce. Walmart currently dominates in the food and beverage category with an 18% share of consumer spend....