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IndustryUpdate

using it in some capacity. Banks leverage GenAI mainly trillion—are crucial for growth, positioning these econo-
for risk management, marketing and operations, achiev- mies as central to global economic shifts and supply
ing gains in employee satisfaction, compliance and cost chain reconfiguration.
reduction. Despite benefits, challenges like data privacy,
governance and technical limitations persist, with only Europe losing SaaS embedded finance race
6 percent of banks having well-established governance
frameworks. Nearly all banks surveyed plan to increase Research from PSE Consulting and The Strawhecker
GenAI investments, with initiatives in synthetic data use Group shows that Europe's banks and SaaS platforms lag
and expanded marketing applications underway. behind the United States in embedded finance adoption.
While 33 percent of U.S. small businesses use embedded
SWIVEL joins U.S. Faster Payments Council finance via SaaS, only 11 percent in the U.K. and 6 per-
cent in Germany and France do. A major barrier is SaaS
SWBC's SWIVEL Transactions LLC joined the U.S. Faster platforms' limited promotion of these services in Europe,
Payments Council (FPC) to support safer, faster pay- despite strong interest, researchers found. Notably, 70
ment systems in the United States. The FPC, a national percent of SMBs in both regions would switch to SaaS
organization, aims to make payments universally acces- platforms for payments, yet U.S. interest exceeds 80
sible with near-instant funds availability. SWIVEL, a percent compared to 55 percent in Europe, they stated,
fintech company specializing in integrated transaction adding that embedded lending holds promise, especially
enablement solutions, aligns with the FPC's mission of for U.S. banks to expand customer reach.
fostering an inclusive, transparent payments environ-
ment. Amanda Crocker, SWIVEL's interim CEO, empha- PARTNERSHIPS
sized the company's commitment to addressing the
challenges of secure instant payments and collaborating
with industry stakeholders to advance faster payments BlueStar, ecoprintQ sign distribution agreement
adoption across the United States.
BlueStar Inc., a distributor of technology solutions,
partnered with ecoprintQ to offer the MPS Monitor
RESEARCH solution for print fleet management. This integration
with Zebra barcode scanners allows BlueStar's partner
New processing players gaining market share network to manage Zebra printer fleets more effectively,
enhancing compatibility and data insights, BlueStar
BPC, in collaboration with Arkwright Consulting, stated. Dean Reverman, BlueStar's vice president of
released the report Next-Generation Card Processing, a marketing, emphasized that ecoprintQ's solution aligns
report highlighting trends transforming the card pro- with BlueStar's mission to provide comprehensive, val-
cessing market, particularly the rise of challenger pro- ue-added services for business growth. ecoprintQ's
cessors. These new players, driven by cloud-native tech- Dominick Bracero said that the partnership advances
nologies and API-first approaches, are rapidly gaining ecoprintQ's commitment to innovative print manage-
market share, with a compound annual growth rate of ment solutions, benefiting both companies' clients and
35 percent and expanding from 2.6 percent to 4 percent the industry.
of the market between 2021 and 2024, researchers found.
The report emphasizes how challengers outpace incum- Klarna now available for Apple Pay checkout
bents by offering scalable, flexible solutions tailored to
non-bank entities like retailers, gig platforms and fin- Klarna, a global AI-powered payments network, is now
techs, reshaping the card processing industry. integrated with Apple Pay for U.S. and U.K. users on
iOS 18 and later, allowing flexible payments like Pay
Emerging markets to drive growth in next decade in 4 installments interest-free. This new feature pro-
vides Klarna's payment options directly within Apple
S&P Global's Look Forward report projects that by 2035, Pay, with Canada joining soon. Klarna CEO Sebastian
emerging markets will drive 65 percent of global eco- Siemiatkowski highlighted the company's mission to
nomic growth, spurred by favorable demographics, make interest-free payments widely accessible, noting
trade dynamics and technological advancements in that users can easily choose Klarna during checkout and
energy and manufacturing. While these markets face confirm with Face or Touch ID. This integration, Klarna
challenges from geopolitics and climate change, key stated, aligns with its goal of becoming a smart alterna-
findings highlight an expected 4.06 percent GDP growth tive to credit cards.
rate in emerging markets, led by countries like China,
India and Vietnam. Investments in skills, manufactur-
ing automation and renewable energy—totaling over $5

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