HubSpot’s 2025 Spotlight proves that the pressure for AI adoption is on: The event highlighted over 200 features to show how HubSpot’s AI is setting the pace.

Snapchat reimagines its Partner Program for SMBs: The changes will see the program split into two tiers, with features to help SMBs advertise.

The expanded partnership boosts merchant acceptance for both Fastlane and Pay with Venmo

Nextdoor q3 earnings highlight growth in ad revenues and active users: "Next" initiative drives platform evolution with focus on in-community connections.

Marketers project Q4 revenue gains: Sales to outpace ad spend growth, driven by focus on more efficient spending strategies.

Acquirers, networks, and issuers each play distinct roles in the payments purchasing chain. But those roles are shifting as providers adapt to the rise of software and value-added services, increased payment method choice, and cloud-based innovation.

Economic uncertainty has slashed small and medium-sized business (SMB) satisfaction with their payment service providers (PSPs). This is intensifying competition between acquirers and processors, banks, fintechs, and the vendors that serve them. Providers must enhance and simplify access to cutting-edge solutions that solve key pain points—or risk losing share.

Payment service providers competing to serve small and medium-sized businesses have a new opportunity to win them over with cutting-edge payment, cash flow, capital, and marketing tools.

Consumer device and behavior trends are affecting payment providers’ strategies across retail, P2P, B2B, disbursement, and cross-border channels. Here’s what that means for the payments ecosystem.

Economic uncertainty and rapid technological innovation are shifting industry dynamics for players across the payments ecosystem, including acquirers and processors, networks, and issuers.

Increasing digitization among the 32 million US small businesses is changing the competitive landscape and forcing banks, acquirers, and fintechs to invest in next-generation features. These features range from payments and value-added services to outreach.

Small and medium-sized businesses are looking to close the automation gap when it comes to accounts payable and receivable. To capture the growing market, banks and software providers must tailor solutions to current SMB needs.

Even before business travel fully rebounds, SMBs are seeking out expense management solutions to track corporate costs and manage employees’ spending habits.

The payfac model has catapulted into the mainstream, thanks to payments disruptors like PayPal, Square, and Stripe. The growth in the number of payfacs, and in the payment volume passing through them, is reshaping key relationships within the payments ecosystem. But the model bears some drawbacks for the diverse swath of companies adopting it, as well as for the merchants that work with them.

Digital advertising confounded the conditions of the past year or so and will attract more than three-quarters of total media ad spending in 2021—£19.23 billion ($24.66 billion). Video has been the biggest driver of digital spend during this time.

With many retail stores temporarily closed during the pandemic, and more consumers turning online to buy goods, major social networks have taken steps to improve their ecommerce offerings.

China’s Singles’ Day is no longer just a discount shopping event, as participating digital giants are now leveraging livestreams, new product launches, and novel technologies to enhance customer engagement and the buying experience.