dLocal has partnered with Alternative Airlines to introduce BNPL options for flight bookings in emerging markets. The integration connects Alternative Airlines to BNPL Fuse, dLocal’s solution combining local BNPL providers into a single integration, giving travellers access to instalment payments when booking flights and travel packages.

Addressing a gap in credit card access

Airfares and travel packages represent high-value purchases for which instalment payment options are particularly relevant. In Brazil, splitting purchases into monthly payments, a practice known locally as parcelado, already accounts for more than half of all credit card spending. Across emerging markets more broadly, however, only around 10-15% of consumers hold a credit card, according to World Bank data. This means the travellers most likely to benefit from spreading out a fare are often those without a card that supports it. In addition, for an online travel agency operating across multiple countries, closing this gap through individual arrangements with local lenders is resource-intensive and difficult to scale.

With this in mind, through BNPL Fuse, Alternative Airlines now offers Addi and Pagaleve, BNPL providers operating in Colombia and Brazil respectively, via a single API integration and contract. Under the arrangement, travellers can spread the cost of a flight or travel package over time, while Alternative Airlines receives full payment upfront and does not carry payment risk. Moreover, the integration also gives Alternative Airlines access to BNPL Fuse’s wider network, which currently spans eight countries and reaches more than 500 million potential buyers, with additional markets and local providers planned.

Expansion plans

dLocal and Alternative Airlines intend to extend the partnership into Chile, Pakistan, and countries across Asia and Africa, where instalment payment habits are already established among consumers. According to the companies, outbound travel demand in these markets is growing faster than credit card penetration, a mismatch that BNPL Fuse is intended to address.

Sam Argyle, Managing Director at Alternative Airlines, said the arrangement allows the company to extend payment flexibility to markets where credit cards have not traditionally featured in travel purchasing decisions, without having to build individual relationships with local lenders

Polymarket has reportedly raised USD 300 million from 1789 Capital as part of a USD 1 billion funding round. According to the report by The Wall Street Journal, the investment forms part of a broader funding round for Polymarket totalling around USD 1 billion.

1789 Capital had previously invested USD 200 million in Polymarket, bringing its cumulative commitment to the platform to USD 500 million once the new round is included. The fund has also backed other technology-related ventures, including the Enhanced Games, an alternative sporting competition founded by former technology industry figures that permits the use of performance-enhancing substances. Polymarket had not issued a public comment on the reported funding at the time of the original report.

Regulatory scrutiny around prediction markets

The investment comes as prediction markets face increasing regulatory attention in the US. At least 20 states are engaged in litigation against prediction market operators, including Polymarket and Kalshi, over sports-related wagers offered on their platforms, according to reporting by The New York Times in August 2026.

The federal government has taken a different position from several state regulators. The Trump administration has argued that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) should serve as the sole regulator of the prediction market industry, rather than individual state authorities. The CFTC has, in turn, filed lawsuits against at least nine states over their attempts to regulate the sector.

In July 2026, a coalition of 44 state attorneys general signed a letter contesting the CFTC’s position, arguing that the agency does not have the authority to regulate sports-related wagers on prediction platforms. The dispute reflects an ongoing divide between federal and state approaches to overseeing the sector.

The reported funding round underscores continuing investor interest in prediction markets despite the unresolved regulatory dispute between state and federal authorities. The outcome of ongoing litigation, as well as any future rulings on CFTC jurisdiction, is likely to shape how prediction market operators such as Polymarket structure their US operations going forward.

Juspay has launched Breeze Universal, a pilot enabling brand discovery and shopping across AI platforms, including ChatGPT and Claude.

The product is an extension of Breeze, Juspay’s commerce technology platform, and allows shoppers to discover, compare, and purchase products from participating brands within a single AI conversation. According to the company, the offering is intended to let businesses with an existing customer base build an AI-driven shopping experience without additional technical development.

Connecting existing catalogues to AI surfaces

According to the official press release, Breeze Universal integrates with a business’s existing online stores, including those built on Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, and custom platforms. Once connected, the underlying product catalogue becomes accessible across the channels where consumers shop, spanning AI platforms, mobile applications, and websites. For merchants, Juspay has positioned the offering as a plug-in commerce layer intended to extend product discoverability beyond a company’s own digital storefront.

As part of the pilot, shoppers can invoke ‘@breeze’ within ChatGPT to receive recommendations drawn from brands present on the Breeze Universal platform, without leaving the ChatGPT interface. Juspay cited examples such as queries for gift suggestions or skincare products priced under USD 18, with the system returning recommendations across multiple participating brands.

Built on Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol

Breeze Universal is built on Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), which Juspay said allows brands to align with emerging AI commerce standards without building custom integration specifications. Through the platform, brands can launch a dedicated ‘@brand’ application inside ChatGPT, published via Breeze, or develop their own AI-powered storefront built around a single search function spanning their full catalogue. The offering is available to merchants as drop-in components, a headless kit, or through APIs, depending on the level of integration a business requires.

Commenting on the launch, Sheetal Lalwani, COO and co-founder of Juspay, said discovery and payments are increasingly converging into a single process for consumers as AI assistants become more central to everyday purchasing decisions. Lalwani added that Juspay aims to act as the technology provider connecting brand discovery with commerce execution within AI-led conversations, giving merchants a basis to prepare for a shift toward agent-led shopping.

Visa has launched an updated A2A Protect solution, integrating Featurespace technology to detect fraud before funds leave accounts. The expanded version includes a unified fraud score, marking the integration of technology from Featurespace, the UK-based fraud analytics company that Visa acquired in 2024.

Rising A2A payment volumes drive fraud prevention focus

A2A payments, which move funds directly between bank accounts without card networks, are expanding rapidly worldwide. According to the data cited by Visa, A2A transaction volumes are projected to reach USD 5.8 trillion by 2028, representing a 160% increase from 2024 levels. This growth has increased pressure on financial institutions to detect fraud in real time, as A2A transfers are typically irrevocable once completed, unlike card payments that carry chargeback mechanisms.

According to the official press release, A2A Protect applies artificial intelligence and transfer learning techniques to provide banks with risk insights drawn from data across Visa’s network, instead of relying solely on a single institution’s historical transaction data. Visa states this allows banks to access risk detection capabilities without the lead time typically required to train models on proprietary data or the need to wait for other institutions to join a data-sharing consortium.

Network-level intelligence and integration

Financial institutions that opt into network-level intelligence sharing can access additional signals designed to flag emerging scam patterns and coordinated fraud activity across the payments ecosystem. With this in mind, Visa states this shared visibility can help identify scams before transactions are authorised, addressing activity that may be harder for individual institutions to detect using their own data alone.

Additionally, Visa reports that A2A Protect increased fraud detection by 75% within the first six months of deployment. The company also adds that the tool has been associated with a reduction of over 50% in fraud and over 40% in unnecessary fraud alerts.

The solution connects to banks’ existing systems through a single API, which Visa says is intended to reduce implementation time and complexity compared with building bespoke detection infrastructure. Each fraud alert generated by the system includes a plain-language explanation of the flagged risk factors, aimed to help fraud teams assess cases more efficiently without introducing friction for legitimate customers.

Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citi, and Deutsche Bank have joined a 21-firm consortium to launch a regulated US dollar stablecoin in 2027. A group of 21 financial institutions, including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citi, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Santander, MUFG, and Fidelity Investments, has announced plans to form a dedicated company to develop and issue a regulated US dollar stablecoin. The consortium is targeting a launch in the first half of 2027, contingent on the formation of the new entity and the fulfilment of other unspecified conditions.

A wider coalition builds toward regulated stablecoins

According to the announcement, the planned stablecoin is intended to serve wholesale, institutional, and retail use cases, with cross-border payments and digital asset settlement cited as proposed applications. The consortium has framed these as areas where stablecoins could reduce friction relative to existing settlement processes. Beyond the initial dollar product, the group has said it intends to expand into other G7-denominated stablecoins, identifying a euro-denominated coin as its next priority after the US dollar launch.

The initiative builds on an earlier effort disclosed in October 2025, when ten banks said they were examining a reserve-backed digital money model operating on public blockchains. The consortium’s membership has since more than doubled to 21 institutions, now spanning North America, Europe, East Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The broader geographic spread indicates that the discussion has moved from individual exploration toward coordinated planning, a step generally associated with establishing shared standards and addressing cross-border legal and operational requirements.

Regulatory alignment with GENIUS and MiCA

The consortium has said its stablecoin design is intended to comply with the US GENIUS Act and, where applicable, the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). Regulatory clarity in both jurisdictions is a factor that can influence bank participation, custodial arrangements, and the willingness of payment networks to integrate stablecoin infrastructure. Separately, Singapore has signalled it is reconsidering restrictions that currently limit its regulatory framework to domestically issued stablecoins, a development that could affect how cross-border consortium models are structured in the future.