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Fraud detection, face payments and real-time cross border payments key trends for 2025: Phi Commerce

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Phi Commerce envisages five key payment trends to emerge in 2025

MUMBAI, India, Dec. 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — In the past few years, digital payments have transformed the way Indians conduct financial transactions, driven by the explosive growth of Unified Payments Interface (UPI). Indian policymakers have facilitated a payments ecosystem in the country like never before, that consumers have begun to come to terms with a new ease of transacting, which has also thrown up challenges of its own.

2024 saw significant changes in the payments landscape, with frameworks drawn for features like conversational voice payments, credit lines, UPI vouchers and UPI Circle. These enhancements aim to improve user convenience and broaden the adoption of digital payments. UPI has also become a global role model in payments, with several countries in Asia, Africa and South America engaging the National Payments Corporation of India to develop digital payment systems modelled after UPI, with launches anticipated by early 2027. 2024 also saw the Reserve Bank of India conducting a digital currency pilot, with major payment firms like Google Pay, PhonePe, and Amazon Pay seeking to participate, indicating a move towards integrating central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) into the payment ecosystem.

As a provider of digital payments like UPI to enterprise clients, Phi Commerce envisages five key payment trends to emerge in 2025, after consistent deliberations with its ecosystem partners. These touch upon the emerging growth of AI-enabled fraud prevention tools, growing popularity of cross border payments, unified lending interface, interoperable mobile wallets and biometric payments.

AI-enabled Digital Fraud Detection

According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), domestic payment fraud increased by 70.64% in six months, reaching Rs 2,604 crore by March 2024, up from Rs 1,526 crore during the same period the previous year. The number of fraud cases also spiked, increasing to 15.51 lakh from 11.5 lakh in the prior six months.

As a result of the dynamic nature of threats in line with technology advancements in payments, traditional fraud detection systems that use rule-based frameworks to identify suspicious transactions are no longer effective. In the current context, prevention must be prioritised over detection and artificial intelligence (AI) could help address these issues a lot more efficiently. AI-enabled tools aim to offer proactive and predictive fraud detection tools against incidents like deepfake videos and sophisticated phishing scams. Financial institutions are turning to AI-powered fraud detection systems to analyse vast datasets in real time, identifying and neutralizing threats effectively. Security has become the foremost challenge for the payments industry as fintech innovations are on the rise, which is adding to the volumes of transactions.

Real-Time Cross-Border Payments

The domestic payment ecosystem is witnessing a global transformation, driven by the international interoperability of UPI. In FY2024, cross-border UPI transactions surged by 150%, according to NPCI data, reflecting robust adoption and rising consumer confidence. Looking ahead, the integration of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and stablecoins into real-time cross-border payment frameworks is set to revolutionise global financial transactions. These advancements promise to significantly reduce transaction costs, enhance processing speeds, and provide seamless payment experiences, thereby catalysing international trade and economic growth.

Unified Lending Interface

The Unified Lending Interface (ULI) framework introduced by the Reserve Bank of India will emerge as a transformational tool to address the last mile gap in India’s lending landscape, much like the way UPI transformed the retail payments landscape. ULI will simplify access to credit by integrating various stakeholders in the lending ecosystem, such as banks, NBFCs, digital lending platforms, and regulators, through a common platform using the plug-and-play model. And this will essentially help the under-banked communities more (read farmers, MSMEs etc), as lending institutions will now have access to borrowers’ digitised records lying with state or central databases, account aggregators, credit bureaus, financial institutions and so on.

Digital Wallet and Interoperability

India’s widespread adoption of digital wallets is paving the way for their seamless integration with card-based payment systems, eliminating silos and offering consumers unparalleled convenience. As per a GlobalData report, the value of mobile wallet transactions in India expanded at a compound growth rate of 72.1% to reach US$2.5 trillion, from 2019 to 2023. Digital wallets now make up for 25% of total payments in India, while UPI dominates 80% of retail transactions (RBI Payments Data 2024). Interoperable digital wallets that support multiple payment networks and protocols, enabling users to transact across various merchants and service providers, is the way forward, and 2025 will see more action on that front.

Face-based Payments

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) move to allow non-OTP methods, such as biometric authentication for the second payment factor, opens the door to face-based payment systems. Facial recognition can offer a seamless and secure alternative to traditional OTP-based methods, eliminating the dependence on mobile networks or SMS delivery.

In the Indian context, this innovation could significantly enhance the user experience, especially in regions with inconsistent mobile connectivity. It also addresses challenges like SIM-swapping fraud or delays in receiving OTPs. Facial recognition leverages advanced AI and biometric data, ensuring both convenience and security, critical in high-volume and low-value transactions like those in retail or transit systems.

This shift aligns with India’s growing digital payment ecosystem, where Aadhaar-enabled authentication has already laid a robust foundation for biometric verification. For merchants, it reduces friction at checkout points, and for consumers, it means faster transactions without additional devices.

About Phi Commerce

Digital payments company Phi Commerce offers omnichannel payment solutions to enterprises that enable them smooth and flexible payments across all consumer touchpoints — browser, mobile, in-store and remote. A payment aggregator payment gateway (PAPG) licence holder from the Reserve Bank of India, Phi Commerce offers a unified omnichannel digital payment platform catering to both B2B and B2C payment requirements for businesses worldwide. The company, backed by investors like Beenext Singapore and Opus Ventures, has offices in Mumbai, Pune, and Singapore, with plans afoot to expand into Southeast Asia, Japan and the Middle East. Phi Commerce had won the ‘Best in Class Payment Startup in Established Fintech Category’ at the 2024 Assocham Annual Fintech Excellence Awards.

 

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/fraud-detection-face-payments-and-real-time-cross-border-payments-key-trends-for-2025-phi-commerce-302339262.html

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Shoplazza Launches the World’s First AI-Native Commerce Operating System with a Unified Suite of AI Agents

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TORONTO, April 20, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Shoplazza, a leading global commerce platform, announced the launch of the world’s first AI native commerce operating system recently, along with a unified suite of AI agents designed to execute across the entire ecommerce lifecycle. The release marks a major step forward in the company’s evolution from a traditional software platform to an AI-driven commerce infrastructure built for global scale.

At the core of the system is Shoplazza AI Store Builder, an intelligent agent that fundamentally changes how online stores are created. Instead of configuring tools manually, merchants can now generate fully functional, ready to sell storefronts through simple natural language input. By interpreting product information, target markets, and customer profiles, the system automatically builds site architecture, generates localized content, and provides initial go to market recommendations. What once required weeks of setup can now be completed in minutes, with a complete store and launch ready foundation.

Shoplazza also introduced LazzaStudio, an AI powered visual creation agent that streamlines how merchants produce content at scale. From product imagery to marketing creatives and campaign visuals, LazzaStudio transforms traditionally complex production workflows into a prompt driven process. With built in brand learning capabilities, the system generates consistent, high quality assets tailored for global audiences, enabling merchants to deploy content seamlessly across storefronts and advertising channels while significantly reducing production time and cost.

To complete the growth loop, Shoplazza launched AdValet, an AI advertising agent that automates campaign execution end to end. AdValet translates product data and market signals into audience targeting, creative generation, media planning, and campaign deployment. During live campaigns, it continuously monitors performance and dynamically optimizes outcomes through real time feedback and model iteration. This shifts advertising from manual, experience based trial and error to a system of continuous, AI-driven performance optimization.

These agents operate together within Shoplazza’s AI-native commerce operating system, where merchant intent is translated directly into coordinated execution. By unifying store creation, content production, and marketing into a single system, Shoplazza replaces fragmented workflows with an integrated layer of automation that enables faster, more predictable growth.

Shoplazza currently supports more than 650,000 merchants worldwide. With its AI-native architecture, the platform brings together previously disconnected capabilities into a single intelligent system, delivering improvements in efficiency, scalability, and operational reliability for businesses operating in increasingly complex global markets.

Looking ahead, Shoplazza will introduce Athena very soon, an AI admin agent designed to extend automation into day to day business management. Covering areas such as product management, order processing, analytics, and content operations, Athena allows merchants to interact with the system conversationally while orchestrating multiple agents in the background. This will complete a fully connected agent ecosystem spanning store creation, creative production, marketing execution, and ongoing operations.

“Commerce has reached a point where adding more tools no longer solves the problem,” said Jeff Li, Founder and CEO of Shoplazza. “What merchants need is a system that can understand intent and execute across the entire business. That is what we are building with our AI native commerce operating system. It is not just about making things easier. It is about making outcomes more predictable, scalable, and aligned with how modern commerce actually operates.”

About Shoplazza

Shoplazza is a global AI-native commerce operating system that enables brands to build, launch, and scale their online businesses. Built on an AI agent-native framework, Shoplazza integrates storefronts, marketing, payments, and operational workflows into a unified system designed to support scalable, long-term growth across global markets. Learn more at https://www.shoplazza.com/.

 

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SOURCE Shoplazza

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Pricer and JRTech Solutions sign 51 MUSD digital store transformation deal with Sobeys in Canada

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MONTREAL, April 20, 2026 /PRNewswire/ – Pricer AB, a global leader in digital shelf-edge solutions, announces that its Canadian partner JRTech Solutions has signed a major agreement with Sobeys, one of Canada’s leading supermarket chains. The contract includes the deployment of Pricer’s latest electronic shelf label (ESL) technology and the cloud-based platform Pricer Plaza across an estimated 300–350 stores.

The agreement covers the supply of multicolor electronic shelf labels and the necessary store infrastructure, with a total hardware and infrastructure value of approximately 51 MUSD (excluding Pricer Plaza). The deployment is scheduled for an 18-month period starting in May 2026.

“We are very grateful for the trust and that Sobeys has once again chosen Pricer as its long-term strategic partner,” says Mats Arnehall, Chief Growth Officer at Pricer. “This deal confirms our leading position in the North American market and the value of our high-performance system in high-density retail environments. Our scalable cloud platform, Pricer Plaza, will be the intelligence behind every label, enabling Sobeys to act faster and work smarter.”

“After years of close collaboration and shared success, we’re proud to grow our partnership with Sobeys even further with an expanded rollout,” says Diego Mazzone, President and CEO of JRTech Solutions. “That momentum is driven by our ability to consistently deliver reliable, high-quality solutions in complex retail environments. Together, we are positioning our digital smart labels at the heart of a broader digital transformation, driving operational excellence, unlocking real-time intelligence, and creating meaningful value for both Sobeys and their customers.”

Orders will be included in Pricer’s order intake as they are received.

About JRTech Solutions
JRTech Solutions Inc. is the leading North American turnkey Electronic Shelf Label (ESL) provider and the largest worldwide distributor of Pricer ESLs, involved in over 2,000 store installations since 2008. JRTech Solutions is the exclusive Canadian provider of AI-powered inventory scanning robotics powered by Brain Corp for automated inventory management.
For further information: www.jrtechsolutions.com

About Pricer
Pricer is a pioneer and partner for in-store communication and digitalization in the rapidly evolving retail tech landscape. As a global technology leader, we empower leading retailers worldwide to shape effortless and inspiring shopping experiences that fundamentally change buying behaviors, boost sales, and drive operational efficiency. Leveraging cutting-edge innovation, we deliver scalable, high-performing solutions that easily integrate with existing systems, are energy-efficient, and user-friendly. Founded in Sweden in 1991 and listed on Nasdaq Stockholm, Pricer has delivered over 380 million electronic shelf labels in more than 28,000 stores across more than 80 countries.
For further information, please visit www.pricer.com

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SOURCE JRTECH SOLUTIONS INC.

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Mitate Zepto Technica Joins JST’s Next-generation Edge AI Semiconductor R&D Program as Social Implementation Partner

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– MZT to Lead Product Commercialization through Its Genome-analysis Accelerator “RASEN” –

TOKYO, April 20, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Mitate Zepto Technica, Inc. (hereinafter “MZT”), based in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, announced on April 20 that it has joined the national research initiative “Next-Generation Edge AI Semiconductor Research and Development Program” promoted by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST). MZT participates as a designated social implementation and commercialization partner for the research theme “Accelerating Edge Intelligence for AI for Science” (Principal Investigator: Makoto Taiji, Program Director, TRIP Headquarters, RIKEN).

Logo: https://kyodonewsprwire.jp/img/202604167540-O1-5Sz6I68Q 

This research theme aims to achieve advanced computational infrastructure through the integration of AI technology and next-generation edge semiconductors, with genome analysis as one of its key application domains. MZT participates as an organization responsible for the productization and social implementation of research outcomes through its proprietary genome-analysis accelerator “RASEN.”

Background

Since its founding in 2020, MZT has pursued a distinctive approach to genome analysis: purpose-built ASIC acceleration. Following technology validation through joint research with Tohoku University and other partners, MZT now participates as an R&D institution responsible for social implementation under this research theme.

MZT’s Role in the Program

Within this research theme, MZT will integrate AI research outcomes from RIKEN and Tohoku University into the RASEN architecture, and lead the R&D work toward social implementation through ASIC development and productization. As the industrial partner bridging research and real-world deployment, the company targets social implementation by 2029.

Program Overview

Research theme: Accelerating edge intelligence for AI for science
Promoting agency: Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)
Principal investigator: Makoto Taiji, Program Director, TRIP Headquarters, RIKEN
Participating institutions: RIKEN, Tohoku University, Keio University, Mitate Zepto Technica
MZT’s participation start: April 2026 (FY2026)
JST program period: FY2025 onwards

Comment from Keisuke Harashima, President & CEO, Mitate Zepto Technica:
“It is a tremendous honor that we can lead the social implementation of this research theme through the acceleration of genome analysis via dedicated semiconductors — a challenge we have pursued since MZT’s founding. RASEN is at exactly the right inflection point, transitioning from research to real-world deployment. We will use this participation to accelerate commercialization across healthcare, drug discovery, and research infrastructure.”

About RASEN

RASEN is MZT’s proprietary genome-analysis accelerator under development, built on a purpose-designed ASIC architecture. In internal validation, RASEN has demonstrated the ability to complete whole-genome sequencing (WGS) analysis in approximately 5 minutes on a standard workstation — without the need for supercomputers or high-performance computing infrastructure. In independent validation studies conducted with Tohoku University, RASEN achieved 99.8% concordance with conventional analysis methods across 12 samples, confirming that its speed advantage does not come at the cost of accuracy.

About Mitate Zepto Technica

Mitate Zepto Technica is a Japanese deep-tech startup developing purpose-built semiconductor solutions for genome analysis. By harnessing cutting-edge chip technology, MZT aims to deliver transformative speed improvements in genomic computation –contributing to the resolution of global challenges in healthcare, food security, and energy through its proprietary products.

Website: https://mitatezeptotechnica.com/en/company/ 

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SOURCE Mitate Zepto Technica, Inc.

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