Mastercard and the Bank of Punjab (BOP) have expanded their two-decade-long partnership to cover the commercial segment in Pakistan.This expanded partnership will include solutions for large corporate entities, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), freelancers and gig workers, the companies said in a Wednesday (Feb. 14) press release.“We are proud to venture into the SME [small and medium-sized enterprise] space with Mastercard,” Nofel Daud, group head strategy and strategic initiatives at BOP, said in ...

The great travel snapback continues, through digital channels, matching supply and demand for places to stay when getting away from it all.Airbnb noted in its results that the fourth quarter saw 98.8 million nights and experiences booked, up 12% from a year ago. As many as 55% of the company’s gross nights were booked through the app, up from 50% last year.Average daily rates increased by 3% to $157 in the December quarter as measured from a year ago. At year end there were 7.7 million active listings, up 1 ...

Chipmaker Nvidia has exceeded Amazon in market value, the first time since 2002 that Nvidia is worth more after the market close.Nvidia closed at $721.28 per share, giving it a market value of $1.78 trillion to Amazon’s $1.75 trillion market cap, CNBC reported on Tuesday (Feb. 13).Nvidia shares are up over 246% year over year, thanks to strong demand for its server AI chips that can cost more than $20,000 each, CNBC said. Among the firms that rely on Nvidia’s chips are Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta, all of whi ...

Small business insurance provider TruShield Insurance is collaborating with Visa to give eligible businesses protection against cybersecurity threats.  “Not having adequate protection against cyberattacks could leave business owners at a disadvantage and, in the event of a major loss, susceptible to bankruptcy,” TruShield Insurance said in a Tuesday (Feb. 13) news release announcing the partnership. The collaboration will offer eligible Visa business cardholders access to TruShield’s commercial insurance po ...

Shopify saw continued acceleration in Shop Pay and faster checkout, and growth in its merchant base as a strong holiday shopping season drove results.But investors fled the stock Tuesday morning on the heels of guidance that pointed to rising operating costs. They sent the stock lower by as much as 8% at the opening of trading on Tuesday (Feb. 13).Drilling down into the numbers, gross merchandise volume (GMV) was up 23% to $875.2 billion. Merchant Solutions revenue increased 21% to $1.6 billion, which manag ...

Visa’s suite of B2B payment solutions now enables financial institutions to add virtual corporate cards to the digital wallets of their clients’ employees. This new digital wallet capability provides greater convenience, security and flexibility for corporate users, the digital payments company said in a Monday (Feb. 12) press release emailed to PYMNTS.Offered through Visa Commercial Pay, Visa’s suite of B2B payment solutions were developed in partnership with payments platform Conferma Pay. These virtual c ...

Walmart and Target are the top funders of a campaign that aims to roll back a California law that critics say has led to a surge in retail theft.This law, Proposition 47, enacted in 2014, aimed to reduce penalties for lower-level drug and property crimes but has been criticized for leading to a surge in smash-and-grab robberies and other crimes, Bloomberg reported Friday (Feb. 9).The two retailers are among those supporting a proposed ballot measure that seeks to give prosecutors more power to charge accuse ...

Barclays has entered into an agreement to acquire Tesco’s retail banking business, including its credit cards, unsecured personal loans, deposits and operating infrastructure.The acquisition of Tesco Bank will be carried out by Barclays UK, the companies said in a Friday (Feb. 9) press release.In addition, Barclays UK will enter into a long-term strategic partnership with Tesco Stores Limited for a period of 10 years, according to the release. Through this partnership, Barclays will offer financial services ...

Disney is beta testing a new advertising tool for its streaming services that matches commercials with appropriate scenes in movies or shows.Dubbed “magic words,” this tool uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze and tag scenes within Disney’s library of movies and television series, Reuters reported Friday (Feb. 9).By analyzing and tagging scenes, Disney’s magic words tool identifies the contents, brands, images and mood within each scene, according to the report. This information is t ...

As Amazon continues to try to shrink the gap between its own share of consumers’ grocery spending and Walmart’s, the eCommerce giant is retooling its mass-market brick-and-mortar offerings and looking to provide one-stop pickup options.On Amazon’s latest earnings call, CEO Andy Jassy noted that the company has already captures a significant share of consumers’ nonperishable grocery spending, with shoppers leveraging the eCommerce marketplace for items such as “consumables and canned goods and pet food and h ...