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Something seismic is happening across the Shopify ecosystem. Stores that operated smoothly—no fraud spikes, no major chargeback issues, timely fulfillment—are suddenly finding their payment processing disabled. Merchants wake up to discover Shopify Payments shut down, funds locked for 120 days (or more), and no path forward. These aren’t outlier cases of fraud or bad intent. All evidence points to a restructuring in how card networks classify risk. At the center of this shift

For months in the Brief, we’ve been tracking Wero’s evolution from an EU-backed ambition into a real payments network with political weight, consumer reach, and institutional buy-in. Belgium’s coordinated expansion gave the project a coherent foundation. Revolut’s integration signaled fintech validation. Banks across three markets delivered millions of users directly into the wallet’s ecosystem. Now two developments arrive back-to-back — Airwallex becoming a Principal Member

A Letter That Revealed the Future Amazon and Perplexity collided last week in a moment that felt like the future of commerce arriving ahead of schedule. The tension began with a letter: Amazon sent a formal demand to Perplexity AI insisting that its Comet browser agent stop shopping on Amazon’s site without revealing that it was an automated system. Perplexity had built a feature that allows users to ask the agent to buy something—cat food, a charger, a new bottle of shampoo—

“It’s a whole new paradigm for shopping,” said Alex Chriss, CEO of PayPal, as the company unveiled a partnership with OpenAI that could reshape how consumers buy online. The deal will embed PayPal’s digital wallet directly inside ChatGPT, allowing users to purchase items they discover through conversations. A new “Buy with PayPal” button will appear in the app, giving shoppers a seamless, protected checkout experience. Behind the interface, PayPal will manage merchant verifi

The 2025 holiday season is shaping up to be a high-volume quarter, just like the forecasts promised. Mobile is expected to dominate. Buy Now, Pay Later is surging. And ecommerce, once again, is projected to outpace physical retail by a wide margin. But while headlines highlight growth and sales opportunity, they tend to leave out what matters most to merchants: staying live, getting paid, and avoiding sudden processor shutdowns during the biggest revenue window of the year. E

The Sale You Never Saw Picture this: a shopper is looking for a winter jacket. She doesn’t just want “something warm.” She wants a specific color—forest green—delivered within five days, under $180. So, she tells her AI assistant exactly that. In seconds, her assistant scans online stores across countries, checks product options, shipping timelines, and return policies. Then it does something new: it creates a digitally signed instruction—a “mandate”—that says, in effect, “If

A fundamental shift in digital commerce is underway. Through a new partnership between Shopify and OpenAI, merchants can now transact directly inside ChatGPT. Conversations that once guided discovery can now complete the full transaction flow—from search to checkout—within a single interaction. This is not a campaign or limited beta. It’s a structural addition to Shopify’s merchant infrastructure and OpenAI’s conversational interface. The integration is powered by real-time p

In a quiet but critical shift, the European Central Bank (ECB) has formally advanced the development of the digital euro — a central bank...

Currency shifts are one of the most persistent challenges in global commerce, yet they remain widely underestimated by businesses...

In today’s payment landscape, maintaining stable processing requires far more than just avoiding fraud. Processors are under pressure...

Mastercard has announced Agent Pay, a new framework designed to allow artificial intelligence systems to execute payments on behalf of...

In late August, German banks halted more than €10 billion in PayPal transactions after detecting a wave of suspicious direct debits...

Writer: Trevor Johnson September 2, 2025 On a Friday afternoon in Lagos, a small logistics firm pushes a $30,000 payment to a supplier in...

By Trevor Johnson “This overreach from banks is only possible because there’s still no clear UK regulatory framework in place governing...

Writer: Trevor Johnson “A record number of Klarna transactions have been paid on time or early in Q2’25, and credit losses remain low.” —...

Slash, the San Francisco-based neobank has entered the stablecoin arena with the launch of USDSL, a U.S. dollar based stablecoin issued...

Compaytence Brief: August 4th, 2025 Beginning October 1, 2025, Visa will initiate full enforcement of its Acquirer Monitoring Program...

Tether, issuer of the world’s most dominant stablecoin, has entered a new phase—shifting from a financial services provider into an...

Compaytence: Global Payments Brief In a calculated expansion of Europe’s sovereign financial architecture, five Belgian banks — Argenta,...

Compaytence Editorial | June 2025 Payment Giants in the Crosshairs – What the Worldline-Payone Scandal Means for the Future of Risk,...