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It was a week that saw a presidential campaign end, the Summer Olympics begin and the start of banking and payments earnings season. We were focused on our usual insightful interviews and comprehensive news coverage and with that in mind we present some of the notable quotes from interviews we conducted with key executives and industry innovators for the week ending July 26.<\/p>\n
We started the week with an innovative twist on car financing. In \u201cCarPutty Shifts Gears on How Consumers Finance Their Cars<\/a>,\u201d CEO Joshua Tatum told us that CarPutty\u2019s own V3 tool (it stands for valuations past, present and future) uses artificial intelligence (AI) to give car owners greater insight into the value of their vehicles. By analyzing tens of thousands of data points per vehicle identification number (VIN), V3 provides real-time and predictive valuations. Consumers can track their car\u2019s current worth, historical value, and projected future value, transforming how they view their vehicles. \u201cIt makes the consumer look at cars as assets versus depreciating assets,\u201d Tatum said. \u201cWhen the tires wear out, people can now make an informed decision on when to offload their car.\u201d<\/p>\n Top of mind for this week were the interviews we did with industry influencers about the first anniversary of the FedNow platform. In \u201cFirst the Launch, Then the Execution: FedNow Turns One,\u201d Eric Foust<\/a>, vice president of banking partnerships for North America at open banking and pay-by-bank provider\u00a0Trustly<\/a>, told PYMNTS that one year into its lifecycle, FedNow has garnered a lot of attention, but the follow-through and embrace of instant payments will require significant education, especially for consumers. \u201cThere is still a lot the industry can do to help educate the consumers,\u201d he said, adding, \u201cThere\u2019s going to be a maturation process where the knowledge that\u2019s obtained on the business side, so individuals who are dealing with these payments on a day-to-day basis\u201d impart their knowledge \u201cto individuals who are way outside of the payment world and don\u2019t touch the payments on a day-to-day basis.\u201d<\/p>\n Foust was joined in the FedNow camp by i2c Global Head of Product Seth Perlman. In \u201cFedNow\u2019s First Year: Path to Critical Mass Requires Time and Education<\/a>,\u201d beyond the benefits of speed, Perlman said there\u2019s value to glean from the data accompanying the payments, standardized through ISO 20022. \u201cWhen you talk about attaching robust payment invoice and other potentially trade finance data to a transaction, that\u2019s what really unlocks real-time payments as a valuable network for business-to-business transactions and, more complicated types of payments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n There were several earnings calls this week, among them Alphabet, which checked in with record quarterly results, but spent most of the time on its call discussing its usage of and plans for AI. In \u201cAlphabet Touts Organic AI Development in Q2 Earnings Beat<\/a>,\u201d Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told the audience: \u201cOur research and infrastructure leadership means we can pursue an\u00a0in-house\u00a0strategy that enables our product teams to move quickly. Combined with our\u00a0model-building\u00a0expertise, we are in a strong position to control our destiny as the technology continues to evolve. Importantly, we\u00a0are innovating\u00a0at every layer of\u00a0AI\u00a0stack, from chips to agents and beyond. A huge strength. We are committed to this leadership\u00a0long\u00a0term.\u201d<\/p>\n And as we do every week, we covered the cybersecurity beat, this time coming off a weekend that saw a major IT outage at the hands of Crowdstrike. It was one of the topics we discussed with Prove CEO Rodger Desai. In \u201cBot? Fraudster? New Technology Finds Legit Users Without Compromising User Experience<\/a>,\u201d he talked about the use of\u00a0AI agents to assist consumers in financial tasks, such as consolidating debt or refinancing a mortgage.<\/p>\n \u201cMany businesses will offer AI agents to consumers to make their lives easier and to save money \u2026 but with that comes the challenge of, \u2018Can you trust this agent to go and do things on your behalf?\u2019 and \u2018Can the bank trust that the AI agent is representing you?\u2019\u201d Desai said. \u201cIdentity is going to be a crucial ingredient to enabling this.\u201d<\/p>\n Not that it was all business. There was after all, chocolate. In \u201cShop Talk: High-End Consumers Swap Fancy Threads for Fancy Sweets<\/a>,\u201d we found out that as consumers cut back on many premium products in the face of ongoing economic challenges, luxury chocolate brand\u00a0MarieBelle New York<\/a>\u00a0is benefitting from shoppers\u2019 desire to enjoy high-end experiences without breaking the bank. Maribel Lieberman<\/a>, the brand\u2019s founder, said shoppers seeking luxury experiences, either for themselves or to gift, are turning to these elevated chocolates to satisfy that need without shelling out thousands of dollars. \u201cThrough these economic challenges, chocolate is still something that people buy, because first of all, it\u2019s something satisfying that can make them happy. Second, it\u2019s a gift that\u2019s beautifully presented, it\u2019s delicious, and compared to, say, a handbag that costs a few thousand dollars, [it\u2019s affordable],\u201d Lieberman said. \u201cSo, for me, it really doesn\u2019t make a difference when we have economic challenges like we\u2019re going through right now.\u201d<\/p>\n