
Coinbase waives fees on PayPal's stablecoin in crypto payments push
April 24 (Reuters) - Coinbase, the largest publicly traded cryptocurrency exchange, is waiving fees on transactions connected to PayPal's stablecoin and allowing its users to redeem the token directly for U.S. dollars, a major milestone for PayPal as the company doubles down on crypto payments.
The move is part of a joint effort by Coinbase (COIN.O), opens new tab and PayPal (PYPL.O), opens new tab to increase the adoption of PayPal's stablecoin, called PYUSD, which it launched in 2023. PayPal says the integration with Coinbase will allow merchants on its network to settle directly in PYUSD instead of traditional financial rails.
Stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency designed to maintain a constant value, usually a 1:1 dollar peg, are commonly used by crypto traders to move funds between tokens. Their use has grown rapidly in recent years, and proponents like PayPal say that they could be used to send payments instantly.
"This combination of being able to connect the consumer bases of PayPal and Coinbase, bringing our merchants to the table, bringing [Coinbase's] institutional access to the table -- we think that it creates a really, really powerful combination," said Jose Fernandez da Ponte, PayPal's senior vice president of blockchain, crypto and digital currencies.
The two companies also plan on partnering for future efforts to increase the adoption of stablecoins for payments and explore use cases for PYUSD on decentralized finance platforms, which allow users to transact directly on a blockchain network without intermediaries.
"This is a partnership that is all about advancing the future of global payments, taking stable coins mainstream, pushing forward this technology," said Lauren Abendschein, global head of institutional sales at Coinbase.
Coinbase has previously only offered the same zero-fee treatment for Circle's stablecoin, USDC, the number two stablecoin in terms of market capitalization.
"Definitely there will be cases for payments where people will make a choice between PYUSD and USDC, and we want to make sure that we establish PYUSD as the best stablecoin for payments," said Fernandez da Ponte.
Circle has also doubled down on the use of its stablecoin for payments. On Monday, the company announced the launch of its Circle Payments network designed for cross-border payment and real-time settlement of its stablecoins between financial institutions.
Stablecoins have a market capitalization of more than $238 billion, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. PayPal's stablecoin has a market cap of only about $872 million, but it could stand to gain greater market share through its integration with Coinbase.
The partnership between the two companies is happening as the U.S. Congress appears likely to pass a bill creating stablecoin rules for the first time. The House of Representatives and the Senate have both advanced bills to create a regulatory regime for stablecoins, and the White House said it wants to see a final bill passed by August.
President Donald Trump has sought to broadly overhaul U.S. cryptocurrency policies after courting cash from the industry during his presidential campaign. In office, he has appointed crypto-friendly leaders to agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission and signed an executive order last month to create a strategic cryptocurrency reserve.
In addition, Trump Media & Technology Group, which is majority-owned by the president, on Tuesday said it had reached a binding agreement to roll out an array of retail investment products, including crypto, in its latest bid to diversify into financial services.

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Reuters
2 hours ago
- Reuters
Robinhood shares fall as S&P 500 inclusion hopes dashed
June 9 (Reuters) - Shares of Robinhood Markets (HOOD.O), opens new tab dipped 5% in premarket trading on Monday, after S&P Dow Jones Indices made no changes to the S&P 500 membership following recent speculation that the online brokerage would be added to the index. S&P Dow Jones Indices announced late on Friday that it will not be making any changes to the components of the benchmark S&P 500 as part of quarterly rebalancing. Robinhood stock rallied in recent weeks, touching its highest level since 2021 market debut on Friday, as investors priced in a possible inclusion in the index. Bank of America analysts earlier this month touted the company as the "prime candidate" to join the S&P 500. Robinhood's shares were down 5% at $71.2 before the bell, while marketing platform AppLovin (APP.O), opens new tab, which also rallied last week on bets of inclusion, dropped 5% to $397. To be included on the index, a company has to be U.S. domiciled, listed on a prominent U.S. exchange and have a market capitalization of $20.5 billion or higher. Robinhood had a market valuation of $66.1 billion as of Friday's close, with shares more than doubling in value this year and trading well above its IPO price of $38 apiece. Crypto-exchange operator Coinbase Global (COIN.O), opens new tab was the latest addition to the S&P 500 last month, making it the first digital asset player to be included in the index.

Finextra
a day ago
- Finextra
Deep Dive: Agentic AI in Payments and Commerce: By Sam Boboev
The fintech world is entering a new era where AI can do more than chat or make recommendations – it can act. In this 'agentic' age of commerce, autonomous AI agents are increasingly capable of making purchases, managing finances, and executing transactions on behalf of users without direct human intervention. What began as experimental chatbots has rapidly evolved into full-fledged agentic AI systems with 'advanced human-like reasoning and interaction capabilities' that are 'transforming the finance and retail sectors' among others. In just the past few months, major payment networks, fintech giants, and startups alike have unveiled tools to empower these AI agents to shop, pay, and transact in the real world. This deep dive explores how the concept of agentic AI emerged in payments and commerce, what key solutions are being built – from PayPal's Agent Toolkit to Visa's Intelligent Commerce – and what it all means for consumers, merchants, and the broader fintech ecosystem. The significance of this shift is hard to overstate. Some compare it to the leap from physical stores to e-commerce, or from web shopping to mobile. As Visa's Chief Product and Strategy Officer Jack Forestell put it, 'Just like the shift from physical shopping to online, and from online to mobile, Visa is setting a new standard for a new era of commerce' with AI agents. The idea is that soon millions of consumers will trust AI assistants to not only find the perfect product or best deal, but also buy it for them – all while handling payments seamlessly in the background. According to Forestell, 'Soon people will have AI agents browse, select, purchase and manage on their behalf. These agents will need to be trusted with payments, not only by users, but by banks and sellers as well'. In other words, the race is on to build the trust, infrastructure, and standards that will let AI-driven commerce flourish safely. This isn't just hype from incumbents. A wave of startups and developers is also charging into the agentic payments gold rush. In late 2024 and early 2025, 'a surge of launches by startups [aimed] to capitalize on the new AI agent economy' has been evident. Fintech innovators see an opportunity to remove friction from transactions by letting AI do the heavy lifting. But they also recognize huge challenges around security, identity, and fraud when algorithmic agents start handling money. Are we really ready to let AI agents loose on our wallets? This article will delve into how the industry is addressing those questions and reimagining commerce itself – from autonomous shopping assistants to AI-powered back-office bots – all through the lens of factual developments and solutions that have emerged in the past year. The Rise of Agentic AI in Commerce Not long ago, 'autonomous AI agents' sounded like science fiction. Yet the rapid advances in generative AI (GenAI) and large language models over 2023–2024 have made it possible for software bots to carry out complex tasks with minimal supervision. Instead of just answering questions, AI can now be agentic – capable of making decisions and taking actions to achieve specific goals. In practical terms, an agentic AI might not only recommend a product but actually place an order, or not only flag a fraudulent transaction but automatically shut down the affected account. The concept took center stage as companies like OpenAI released frameworks for AI agents that can use tools and APIs. This opened the door for integrating payment capabilities directly into AI workflows. Financial services quickly became fertile ground for these innovations. According to a PwC executive playbook, 'multimodal GenAI agentic frameworks have emerged as transformative catalysts, enabling businesses to accelerate process automation at an unprecedented scale', with finance and retail among the sectors already seeing impact. Early experiments had AI agents assist with things like investment research, loan document analysis, and customer support. By late 2024, attention turned to payments and commerce – arguably the next frontier for agentic AI. After all, shopping and financial transactions involve myriad routine decisions and steps (searching for products, comparing options, entering payment details, etc.) that an AI could potentially handle faster and more efficiently than a human. Crucially, the infrastructure to support such autonomy was starting to fall into place. Payment APIs have proliferated, digital wallets and tokenization are widespread, and e-commerce is API-driven – all of which make it easier to plug an AI agent into the commerce loop. In October 2024, industry observers like Sardine noted that 'AI agents are the hottest trend in banking right now, offering massive productivity gains by automating complex tasks and making decisions at lightning speed – tasks that once required human oversight'. However, as Sardine's Head of Strategy Ravi Loganathan cautioned, this promise comes with challenges: 'How do you know the AI agent is operating within your consent? How do you link each payment back to a verified identity? How do we prevent fraud against the agents or prevent the agents from committing fraud?'. These questions underscored the need for new frameworks and safeguards before handing the keys (and the credit cards) to AI. By early 2025, the concept of agentic commerce had moved from theory to reality. In April and May 2025, a flurry of announcements from top payments companies signaled that autonomous shopping and payments are officially here. Mastercard unveiled its Agent Pay initiative; Visa introduced Intelligent Commerce; PayPal, Stripe, and Coinbase each launched toolkits for AI agent transactions; and startups like PayOS came out of stealth to tie everything together. Each of these efforts contributes a piece to the emerging ecosystem of agent-enabled commerce. Let's examine these key products and solutions driving the agentic AI revolution in payments.


The Guardian
3 days ago
- The Guardian
Online ‘ghost stores' are providing fake tracking numbers to dupe payment platforms, Australian shopper says
Online 'ghost stores' falsely claiming to be Australian businesses are providing fake tracking numbers to convince payment platforms they have delivered goods that have never been sent, a disappointed shopper says. Ghost stores are online businesses that only exist in a digital sense and do not have a physical storefront. Guardian Australia has tracked 140 such stores masquerading as local businesses, which include those selling poor quality clothing and counterfeit labels, while others take customers' money and fail to deliver anything at all. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email A 63-year-old Geelong woman, who asked not to be identified, said she had a 'distressing' and 'disappointing' experience seeking a refund from PayPal after trying to buy items from the Maison Canberra website in April. She said she had been duped by fictitious advertising on Facebook portraying it as a Canberra-based boutique having a sale after making the difficult decision to close. Her clothing and shoe orders never arrived. The customer said the seller had repeatedly submitted false evidence to PayPal of deliveries, and she believed the payment platform was siding with the business despite her 'efforts to provide clear and legitimate proof to the contrary'. Maison Canberra was built using Shopify, a Canadian multinational e-commerce platform. Neither Maison Canberra nor Shopify has responded to Guardian Australia's repeated requests for comment. On 31 March Guardian Australia bought a blouse for $69.95 from Maison Canberra. The site sent an email on 1 April saying the item had been shipped but it was never delivered. The site has since been taken down. The Geelong woman spent $490.90 on two orders of clothing and shoes. After seeing she had been charged international transaction fees of $17.18, researching the site and realising she had potentially been scammed, she lodged a dispute with PayPal requesting a refund. She said she had included 'extensive documentation' including evidence of what she believed were 'fake' tracking numbers. In two separate emails seen by Guardian Australia, Maison Canberra claimed her orders were 'on the way' but sent tracking numbers beginning with 'UK'. Australia Post declined to comment on whether they were valid. Guardian Australia looked up the tracking numbers on three third-party parcel-tracking platforms, all of which said the orders had been processed by a logistics company in China but had not progressed any further. Consumer experts have said Shopify and Meta need to take more responsibility for enabling these sites and allowing them to run false advertising but that payment platforms including PayPal also play a role by allowing these sites to use their services. The Geelong customer said PayPal had denied her claim on 29 April and told her tracking information provided by the seller showed that the items had been delivered. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion The woman filed a formal complaint with PayPal on 11 May. But she said she hadn't receive a refund until 26 May, the day after she told PayPal she would escalate the issue to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority. She said PayPal maintained she had received items from the seller and that her refund had only been granted because they were 'not as described'. The customer said she was 'appalled by this misrepresentation'. 'I strongly believe consumers deserve better protection, and someone must be held accountable,' she said. 'It's so distressing and so disappointing and frustrating.' She said PayPal should have a dedicated fraud or scam category in its claims process to help scam victims seeking redress. PayPal previously said all Australian sellers were verified when applying for an account, before conceding that this may not be the case for online sellers based in countries with different laws and regulations. A PayPal spokesperson said the safety and security of customers was its 'top priority' and it invested 'significant resources' into protecting them. 'Under PayPal's buyer protection policy, we will refund the full purchase price plus the original shipping charges for eligible claims,' they said. The Australian Financial Complaints Authority declined to comment, saying it could not disclose information about individual complaints. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which has previously said it is investigating ghost stores, declined to comment.