Daily News

Plaid Powers Financial Insights In Claude

Plaid Brings Banking Data to Claude

Hey Payments Fanatic!

Would you ask an AI assistant where your money went last month?

Plaid is now powering account connections for Personal Finance, a new feature in Claude. US users can open the Personal Finance tab, connect their accounts through Plaid and start asking questions.

That could mean tracking spending across accounts, spotting unexpected fees, making a plan to pay down debt, or understanding what an APR actually costs.

Importantly, Claude's access is read-only, so it can't move money.

"Most people don't need more financial information. They need help making sense of it," says Plaid CTO Will Robinson.

What stands out to me is who this reaches. According to Plaid, nearly two-thirds of people in the US who connect their bank accounts to AI assistants through Plaid had never used a Plaid-powered personal finance app before.

That makes AI assistants a new front door to personal finance. Anthropic now joins more than 800 AI companies building with Plaid.

Here's what else is happening in payments today👇

See you tomorrow!

Cheers,

Marcel

INSIGHTS

💡 Riding Unicorns: Noah’s Shah Ramezani on Building the Future of Global Payments with Stablecoins. In the latest episode, Noah Co-Founder Shah Ramezani joins hosts James Pringle and Hector Mason to discuss how he and Thijn Lamers identified the stablecoin opportunity early and set out to rethink how businesses move money across borders. The conversation covers scaling global payments infrastructure, building teams that thrive on complex challenges, managing risk in stablecoin payments, and how AI could reshape FinTech and the underlying payment rails. Ramezani also shares advice for founders and his picks for potential future unicorns. Listen the full episode here

NEWS

🇺🇸 Plaid powers account connections for Claude's new Personal Finance feature. US users can link financial accounts to get insights from Claude, with read-only access that cannot move money. Anthropic joins more than 800 AI companies building with Plaid.

🇺🇸 Klarna goes live with Guitar Center online. US shoppers can now pay in full, in four interest-free instalments or with financing at the retailer's online checkout. Guitar Center operates more than 300 stores.

🇦🇿 Mastercard adds transport and cashback offers for Azerbaijan's TəhsilPlus cardholders. Teachers holding the card, developed with Kapital Bank and the Education Development Fund, can pay 1 qəpik per journey on Baku public transport each weekday in November. The card supports up to 450,000 education professionals.

🇺🇸 Mastercard secures patents to assess money laundering risk before crypto transfers. The US Patent and Trademark Office granted the two patents on 3 November, covering pre-transfer AML risk assessment and private processing with double-spend prevention.

🌐 Airwallex launches integration with Vercel. The Airwallex connector on Vercel lets developers building AI apps and agents accept payments, send payouts and track multi-currency cash positions. Credentials are requested only when an app needs them.

🇺🇸 Stripe powers stablecoin purchases in Samsung Wallet. Stripe's Crypto Onramp lets eligible users on 82 million Galaxy devices in the US buy USDC through the new Samsung Wallet Stablecoin Account, using Samsung Pay, cards or ACH.

🇦🇪 Visa Acceptance Platform now accepts Jaywan cards online in the UAE. Merchants can accept eligible Jaywan debit, credit and prepaid cards from Al Etihad Payments' domestic scheme, with card-on-file tokenisation through Visa's Token Management Service.

🇪🇸 MONEI launches Tap to Pay on iPhone for merchants in Spain. Merchants can accept contactless cards, Apple Pay and other digital wallets using only an iPhone and the MONEI Pay app, without extra hardware. MONEI offers more than 40 payment methods, including Bizum.

🇪🇺 Segpay expands Pay by Bank to eight European markets. The service, powered by TrueLayer, is now available in Belgium, Finland, France, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain, alongside the UK and Germany, supporting one-time purchases in GBP and EUR.

💡 American Express: Q3 2026 Results: Revenue Reaches $20.1B as Billed Business Hits $454B. American Express reported revenue of $20.1B (+9% YoY), net income of $3.7B (+28%) and billed business of $454B (+8%). Card fee revenue approached $3B, growing 16%, while credit loss provisions declined to $985M from $1.3B. However, the headline profit growth needs context: Amex recorded a $982M pre-tax gain from selling its stake in Global Business Travel Group. Excluding this gain and restructuring items, adjusted net income increased 11%. The premium card business also remains resilient, with nearly all U.S. Platinum cardholders reportedly retaining their cards after the annual fee rose from $695 to $895. Management also raised its full-year 2026 EPS guidance. Read the full Q3 results breakdown here

🇻🇳 Mr Pips $61M fraud trial puts Vietnam's payment gateways under scrutiny. Prosecutors will examine the alleged role of gateways including 9Pay and BigPay in a second phase of the case, which involves 188 defendants and nearly VND1.6 trillion. The firms have not been charged.

🇺🇸 Payoneer's Q3 revenue rises 2% YoY to $276.9M. Volume grew 13% to $25.3B, with B2B volume up 59% to $5.0B. Net income rose 6% to $14.9M, while adjusted EBITDA fell 4% to $68.3M.

🇸🇬 Tazapay's FY2026 revenue jumps 71% as net loss widens to $7.36M. Revenue reached $21.19M in the year to March 2026, according to its audited filings with ACRA. Circle agreed in September to buy the Singapore firm in an all-stock deal valued at $400M.

🇪🇺 ECB to start digital euro pilot in the second half of 2027. The 12-month pilot will involve 36 service providers, with formal issuance targeted for 2029, subject to EU legislation being agreed this year, Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said.

🇭🇰 OSL Group and Reap collaborate on stablecoin payments. The partners aim to expand everyday stablecoin use, combining OSL's USDGO, with over $1.2B in circulation, and Reap's stablecoin-linked card programmes. No launch timeline was given.

🌐 BitPay adds one-tap crypto buying powered by MoonPay. BitPay Wallet users in more than 100 countries can buy crypto with Apple Pay, Google Pay, cards or SEPA, with purchases going straight to their self-custody wallets.

🇰🇷 Coocon and DSRV sign MoU on on-chain financial APIs and AI agent payments. The partners will explore stablecoin data APIs covering wallet balances, deposit detection and settlement data. Coocon will apply the x402 payment protocol to its MCP data APIs.

🇭🇰 UstarPay selects BitGo Bank as custodian for its digital assets. The OCC-regulated BitGo Bank & Trust will hold the digital asset holdings behind UstarPay's payment and card infrastructure. Financial terms were not disclosed.

🇮🇳 Cashfree launches Checkout for Agents. Built on the WebMCP standard, the feature lets AI agents read order totals and pick a payment method on Cashfree's hosted checkout, while shoppers approve the final payment. It is enabled by default for merchants.