Daily News

Perplexity, Amex and Plaid Put AI to Work for Small Businesses

Amex Connects to Perplexity via Plaid

Hey Payments Fanatic!

What if your business card could do more than just pay for things?

That’s the idea behind a new partnership between Perplexity and American Express, giving eligible U.S. Amex Business Card Members access to ready-made AI workflows for things like cash flow forecasting, tax prep, reconciliation, marketing, and hiring.

The interesting part is that these Skills can connect to the tools a business already uses. Plaid links the American Express Business Card and, where needed, operating bank accounts, giving Perplexity access to the financial data it needs to build forecasts, reconcile transactions, and identify potential cash shortfalls.

Instead of figuring out how to prompt AI for every task, business owners can pick a Skill, connect their data, and let Perplexity Computer do the heavy lifting.

I find this interesting because AI is moving from something that helps you think about your business to something that can actually help run parts of it.

And as more financial data flows into AI tools, Taxbit looks at the next challenge: reporting digital money across assets and jurisdictions.

Here’s what else is happening in payments today👇

See you tomorrow!

Cheers,

Marcel

INSIGHTS

💡 Taxbit: The Next Challenge in the Digital Money Race: Reporting. While the US, China, and Europe are taking different approaches to stablecoins, CBDCs, and digital money, Taxbit argues that the next major challenge is how to identify, classify, and report transactions across assets and jurisdictions. With CARF and CRS 2.0 expanding reporting requirements and the first exchanges beginning in 2027, the focus is shifting from which form of digital money wins to how platforms can handle the reporting complexity at scale. Read the full analysis here

NEWS

🇺🇸 American Express partners with Perplexity to bring AI tools to business cardholders, letting eligible Amex Business Card Members connect their cards through Plaid and access pre-built workflows for cash-flow forecasting, tax prep, reconciliation, and other business tasks.

🇧🇪 Mastercard launches Click to Pay in Belgium, eliminating manual card entry for online purchases. Enrolled cardholders can now pay at participating merchants across devices, as 83% of Belgian consumers cite payment speed as a key factor when shopping online. Belgian e-commerce spending reached €18.3 billion in 2025, up 5.4% YoY.

🇰🇷 Mastercard launches payments security campaign in South Korea, using a K-microdrama format to highlight common risks around online payments and card security. The campaign uses short-form drama to highlight common payment-security risks and promote safer online payment habits.

🌎 BMO and Mastercard enable embedded commercial payments within enterprise software, across North America. The collaboration embeds commercial payments directly within enterprise software for business users in the region.

🇯🇵 Stripe sets 2027 launch for business lending in Japan, announcing Stripe Capital at Stripe Tour Tokyo. Over 150,000 businesses in Japan now use Stripe, with 45,000 joining in the past year. A randomised study found firms accepting Capital offers grew revenue 27 percentage points faster than similar firms that did not.

🌏 Visa reports nearly 200% annual growth in stablecoin card payments, now supporting over 160 stablecoin-linked card programmes globally. Business and commercial cards account for roughly 17% of volume, while research cited by Visa estimates annual stablecoin payment volume at between $401 billion and $527 billion. Payments are now the fastest-growing stablecoin use case.

🇯🇵 SBI wants stablecoin QR payments for Japan-Korea travel, partnering with NICE Information & Telecommunication and DSRV to test cross-border checkout flows. Japanese travelers would pay at NICE-affiliated merchants in South Korea by scanning QR codes, with the joint verification expected to finish by December 2026. NICE brings a Korean merchant network spanning roughly 1.2 million merchants.

🇬🇧 Brite Payments launches Pay by Bank in the UK, after securing an EMI licence from the FCA. A survey of 2,000 UK adults found 47% of shoppers suffer checkout rage online. 23% have abandoned a purchase to avoid finding their physical card.

🇹🇷 Bybit eyes payments, stocks, and crypto in Türkiye, with CEO Ben Zhou outlining plans to turn the local operation into a financial "super app." Zhou called Türkiye one of the world's top five crypto markets for global exchanges and wants to add international transfers, stablecoin payments, and investment products beyond crypto trading. Some services would require licenses beyond standard crypto permissions.

🇮🇱 Nayax completes its acquisition of IPS Group, expanding its unattended payments footprint into smart parking and urban mobility. The deal adds IPS Group's parking meter and sensor technology to Nayax's global payment platform, which serves vending, EV charging, and other self-service verticals across over 80 countries. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

🇪🇺 The Payments Association acquires TPA EU, following a unanimous vote by TPA EU members. The deal creates a network of more than 350 member organisations. TPA EU stays based in Luxembourg, led by general manager Thibault de Barsy.