Technology

The partnership with Visa Direct sets X Money up with infrastructure to be a global payments powerhouse, but getting consumers to actually use it will be an even bigger challenge.

The company's software automatically monitored and negotiated bank fees on customers' behalf, with recent expansions into buy now/pay later bill management.

AI isn't inherently good or bad; its value depends entirely on how it's used. For financial institutions, this means shifting the focus from internal productivity gains to customer outcomes.

The Chinese startup roiled markets with its AI assistant, which appears to be a less expensive answer to ChatGPT. Banks have reasons to be cautious about this particular model but also to hope it will bring down AI's costs.

The group was still the most active such gang last year, but its activity appears to have been severely hampered by law enforcement.

Non-stablecoin cryptocurrencies have no inherent value, so creating a federal "reserve" of them is absurd on its face. Chinese hacking of bitcoin will have no significant economic impact.

Pressing tech items across banking include the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s impending Synapse rule and Regions Bank's play for an open banking future.

Truth.Fi will offer ETFs, cryptocurrencies and crypto-related securities.

The Czech Republic's central bank plans to shift billions of reserves to bitcoin. Plus Australia and the Netherlands crack down on BNPL, and other news from the world of payments.

There are reasons to be cautious about how a strategic reserve of the cryptocurrency is established, but the economic arguments for including it in the federal government's portfolio are strong.