The year 2024 has presented small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with a series of daunting challenges. The global business landscape is marked by economic uncertainty, evolving consumer behaviour, and rapid technological advancements, all of which are contributing to a volatile environment.

As market digitalization accelerates, customer expectations are reshaping how we shop and pay, blending online and offline experiences into unified commerce. Digital wallets are rising in popularity, automated systems promise to simplify transactions, and innovations like tokenization, biometric authentication, and AI-driven fraud detection are enhancing security, while. The future of payments will hinge on consumer acceptance and the seamless integration of these new technologies into everyday life.

The payments sector has always been fast-moving, and it has always served as a sandbox for innovation that has then gone on to influence the rest of the financial sector. This has certainly not changed – if anything, the speed of innovation is only increasing. 

Syfe, Asia’s leading saving and investment platform, today announced that it has closed a USD 27 million funding round, increasing its valuation and bringing total funds raised to USD 79 million. 

Finzly, Inc. ("Finzly"), a leader in innovative payment and financial solutions, today announced an agreement with Corpay, Inc. Cross-Border business, ( a global leader in corporate payments, to collaborate on a joint offering that brings together Finzly's FX payment platform and Corpay's real-time FX rates. This collaboration provides a unique offering to financial institutions and their business clients, enabling FX transaction capabilities that are seamlessly integrated with many payment rails.

CLARA Analytics, a leading provider of artificial intelligence (AI) technology for insurance claims optimization, today announced two pivotal executive hires. Robin Spaulding, CPCU, AIC, has joined CLARA as Chief Insurance Officer, and 

Klarna, the AI-powered global payments network and shopping assistant, has launched two new products tapping into retail banks’ core business: everyday spending and saving. Launched in 12 countries across Europe and the US, this marks a significant step forward in Klarna’s mission to disrupt retail banking and become an every day spending partner to the world’s consumers.

The points, miles and perks that have come to define the modern credit card marketing playbook are being replaced by cashback rewards and lower fee cards as cardholder financial health1 grows increasingly strained. According to the J.D. Power 2024 U.S. Credit Card Satisfaction Study,SM released today, only 46% of cardholders are now classified as financially healthy and 51% carry revolving debt on their cards.

Zip, a digital financial services company offering innovative, people-centered products, today announced its integration as a payment method for U.S. merchants using Stripe.

Sionic, a leading provider of real-time, Pay-by-Bank Commerce (PbBC) services, today announced the launch of its comprehensive fraud detection and mitigation service built exclusively for real-time, bank-to-bank payments at checkouts, whether online, mobile or in-store. Using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform, Sionic is able to help financial institutions and retailers detect fraud more effectively.