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The news: Block’s Square will be Live Nation Canada’s exclusive provider of payments. Our take: Partnering with Live Nation Canada offers Square a space to test out its newest tech on large crowds in a confined space expecting fast turnaround times.

Retail media’s rapid growth has spurred nonretail verticals to harness their first-party data to fuel their own commerce media networks. Retail media spending still dominates the commerce media landscape, but distinct challenger cohorts are finding their footing.

Issuers and POS providers need to offer fast, secure checkout experiences.

The news: Shopify partnered with Coinbase and Stripe so customers can pay with the USDC stablecoin at checkout. Our take: Coinbase is the biggest winner in this partnership. Cryptocurrency needs to gain traction with a wide merchant network to accelerate its use, and Shopify represents a huge score for Base.

Advertisers’ push for a unified strategy across retail media, loyalty programs, and merchandising is raising the bar on data and transparency. Paul Lentz, executive director and head of strategic development at CVS Media Exchange, shares how new collaborations—from The Trade Desk to social platforms—can help brands see every ad dollar’s impact.

In-store payments provide a new growth avenue for BNPL providers facing slower industrywide volume growth

And it could have pushed consumers to use an alternative digital wallet like Shop Pay or Cash App Pay to check out online. If consumers had a good experience with these other wallets, they may also be more willing to use them in the future, affecting PayPal’s future volume.

Even so, issuers may be slow to lift preemptive APR increases as they brace for economic turbulence

The digital wallet added Afterpay and will soon add Klarna. Google Pay already has tie-ups with Affirm and Zip. Expanded virtual cards. Google Pay will now let Discover cardholders in the US set up and pay with a virtual card from their Chrome or Android device. This feature was already available to American Express, Capital One, and Citi cardholders. Added fraud protections.

Our take: There has been a frenzy of feature innovation in digital wallets as they try to expand beyond payments into everyday commerce enablers. Adding new features like Pool Money is therefore crucial for PayPal to stay competitive and maintain customer loyalty in the highly saturated market. We expect PayPal to have 217.3 million core users worldwide in 2025.

It wants to be a one-stop shop for payments and commerce and to better compete with other digital wallets like PayPal and Cash App, which both also have crypto integrations. This move may also foreshadow a larger push into crypto from payment providers as they ready for the asset class to take off under President Donald Trump.

Three in 10 customers intend to use three or more digital wallets in the coming years, per McKinsey & Company, likely because no single wallet provides all the services a consumer needs. But proprietary wallets from phone manufacturers have the best shot at securing loyalty given users’ tight relationships with their devices.

This leaves the BNPL industry back at square one in terms of regulation, creating uncertainty for providers

Apple will soon open up its near-field communication (NFC) tech to third-party digital wallets in the US and will let iPhone users choose their default contactless payments app.

The partnership highlights the importance of individual merchant deals and larger platform tie-ups

It’s is betting that hardware rollouts and vertically integrated offerings can stave off competitors.

Peru is Latin America’s fifth-largest retail ecommerce market by total sales volume. Although social unrest has stymied online sales growth over the past two years, the country has the potential to become a formidable multibillion-dollar ecommerce player in the region.

Understanding the nuances of how and where Latin America’s 293.2 million digital buyers spend their money online is key for brands and retailers to succeed in the world’s second-fastest-growing region for ecommerce.

Understanding the nuances of how and where Colombia’s 13.4 million digital buyers spend online is crucial for brands and retailers seeking a competitive edge in this emerging market.