• Expedia is partnering with fintech company Upgrade to offer Flex Pay, a BNPL solution that lets travelers pay for cruises in monthly installments, making luxury vacations more accessible.
• Flex Pay supports payments across Expedia’s platforms and 750 travel and retail brands.
• The partnership will assist travelers in managing their costs and will help cruise operators boost bookings, conversions, and order values.

Online travel booking company Expedia is partnering with mobile banking and lending fintech Upgrade to make its cruise booking services more accessible.

Specifically, Expedia is using Flex Pay, Upgrade’s buy now, pay later (BNPL) solution to enable travelers to pay for their cruise vacations in monthly installments. Consumers in the US and Canada will be able to book cruise experiences on 750 travel and retail brands via Expedia Cruises, Expedia.com, Travelocity.com, Orbitz.com and Cheaptickets.com using Flex Pay.

“We believe travel should be accessible to everyone,” said Expedia Cruises President Matthew Eichhorst. “With the introduction of Flex Pay, we’re not just offering payment options; we’re opening doors to experiences that once may have seemed out of reach. By allowing travelers to spread costs over time, we’re making dream cruises more attainable and enabling the exploration of the world on one’s own terms.”

Formerly known as Uplift, Flex Pay partners with Celtic Bank, Uplift, and Uplift Canada to allow travelers to finance their cruise vacation by spreading their payments over three to 24 months with no interest. While consumers benefit from a more approachable way to pay for their cruise, the cruise brands themselves also benefit. That’s because Flex Pay’s financing has proven to increase booking volume, conversion, and order value by 15% to 25%.

“This partnership builds on the success of our cruise division, which achieved a 23% year-over-year growth in bookings in 2024, driven by both increased volume and order value,” said Flex Pay President Tom Botts. “With products like no-interest loans and on-board financing, we take pride in helping partners like Expedia Group and their cruise lines expand their reach, attract more customers, and boost revenue.”

Founded in 2017, Upgrade is a digital banking platform headquartered in California. The company offers checking and savings accounts, personal loans, credit cards, and rewards programs that focus on low fees and responsible credit usage to help consumers improve their financial lives. Upgrade has served millions of customers and has facilitated over $35 billion in credit with tools such as its Upgrade Card, which encourages customers to pay off balances quickly and avoid revolving debt and build credit responsibly. Upgrade also offers cashback rewards, competitive savings rates, and credit monitoring tools, positioning itself as a customer-friendly alternative to traditional banks.

Upgrade launched the Flex Pay brand in 2024, rebranding it from Uplift. The BNPL tool serves 750 travel and retail brands, helping them to increase their customer engagement, loyalty, and consumer spending by offering more flexible payment options.

The partnership between Expedia and Upgrade is a prime example of how fintechs are expanding beyond traditional banking services into everyday spending categories, providing financial tools at the point of sale rather than only at the point of need.

The news comes at a time when the BNPL market, while not slowing, is experiencing a maturation. Regulators in the UK and Europe are more closely scrutinizing BNPL tools, while BNPL pioneer Klarna is reportedly set to file a $1 billion-plus IPO as early as next week. Despite the signs that BNPL is maturing, however, it does not seem to be slowing down, especially as consumers find themselves cash-strapped and credit-starved.

Photo by Samson Bush

• BVNK is launching an embedded wallet that unifies fiat and stablecoins.
• The new wallet will allow fintechs, payment providers, and platforms to offer their customers seamless multi-currency payments across traditional and blockchain rails.
• The API-powered wallet supports USD, GBP, EUR, and stablecoins, with auto-conversion options, compliance handling, and direct integration into client platforms under their own brand.

After raising $50 million for its stablecoin infrastructure platform two months ago, multi-rail payments infrastructure platform BVNK announced the launch of an embedded wallet that unifies fiat and stablecoins across the globe.

BVNK is launching the embedded wallet to help fintechs, crypto, and payment companies accelerate money movement for their customers by bringing together fiat and stablecoins on a single platform, providing payment flexibility. Using the new embedded wallet API, users can allow their customers to store, spend, and get paid in USD, GBP, EUR, and stablecoins any time of day.

The wallet, however, does not require end users to hold crypto even if they want to pay using crypto. BVNK has auto-conversion features that allow users to automatically convert stablecoin payments they receive into fiat currencies, or fiat to stablecoins upon payout.

The new wallet offers direct access to payments on leading blockchains and traditional networks such as Swift, ACH, and SEPA. Clients can use BVNK’s embedded wallet API to make the functionality available within their platform and as their own brand. In addition to the movement of funds, BVNK is responsible for the custody, safeguarding, and KYB and KYC compliance.

BVNK is gearing its new embedded wallet to serve three main user groups: payment service providers and fintechs, which can use it to offer their customers payout capabilities; payroll and tech companies, which can use it to speed up payments to international workers, hosts, creators and sellers; and cryptos and neobanks, which can use it to allow their customers move from USD, EUR and GBP to stablecoins within your app.

BVNK’s announcement is a clear example of the payment industry’s collective shift toward adopting stablecoins, which are cryptocurrencies pegged to fiat or a physical asset. Over the past six months, both fintechs and banks have shown increased interest in stablecoins because of their potential to bring significant value to users. That’s because they are both instant and inexpensive, unlike payments made via traditional payments rails such as SWIFT.

Notably, stablecoins work great for cross-border payments and remittances because they offer greater accessibility compared to traditional banking systems, while also mitigating the volatility typically associated with other cryptocurrencies.

These attributes make BVNK’s embedded wallet a compelling tool for businesses looking to harness the speed, flexibility, and cost advantages of stablecoins without the complexity typically associated with handling crypto. By seamlessly bridging fiat and stablecoins within a single, embedded solution, BVNK empowers fintechs, payment providers, and global platforms to offer faster, more affordable cross-border payments, enabling their customers to send, receive, and convert funds across currencies and rails with minimal friction.

Photo by cottonbro studio

• Corporate payments company Corpay launched multi-currency accounts.
• The new multi-currency accounts allow businesses to receive, hold, and pay in 12 currencies through dedicated accounts.
• Corpay joins a long list of fintechs, including Wise and Revolut, that offer multi-currency accounts.

New York-based corporate payments company Corpay announced it has added multi-currency accounts to its business offerings. The new offering will enable businesses to expand globally and manage their foreign currency from a single place.

Corpay offers accounts payable automation tools, commercial card solutions, and cross-border tools such as multi-currency risk management and global invoice automation. The company serves 800,000 businesses and organizations across a range of industries. Today’s launch will help businesses transacting in foreign currencies simplify their treasury management in a single place instead of opening and managing multiple foreign bank accounts.

“Our goal is to continuously develop solutions that transcend borders, allowing for seamless international operations,” said Corpay Cross-Border Solutions Chief Product & Digital Innovation Officer Tim Watson. “After meticulous development that integrates our customers’ feedback and industry insights, our centralized account solution caters to the needs of businesses engaging in overseas markets across diverse jurisdictions and currencies. It streamlines account opening and management across multiple currencies and countries, simplifying complexity and allowing our customers to focus on their business first.”

The multi-currency accounts allow companies to receive and pay out in 12 currencies via a dedicated account in their business’ name. On the backend, the business will see a unique account assigned to each currency that the accountholder trades. This simplifies the payments and receivables process and lowers the barriers to enter global markets.

Corpay is launching the new multi-currency accounts after completing pilot testing and adjusting the tool based on customer feedback. “The development of Multi-Currency Accounts has been a collaborative effort with our customers, and their buy-in and willingness to provide feedback has been instrumental,” said Corpay Cross-Border Solutions Group President Mark Frey. “Through our ongoing commitment to client centricity and addressing their needs, we have dedicated ourselves to continuous industry research and competitor analysis, while also constantly gathering invaluable feedback from our customers. Ultimately, our goal is not only to create a best-in-class product, but also to enhance the future success of our clients.”

Launching multi-currency accounts places Corpay in the company of Wise, Revolut, Payoneer, Airwallex, Finzly, and others who also offer multi-currency accounts. Unlike many of the competitors, however, Corpay differentiates itself by offering a wide range of treasury management solutions.

Founded in 1992, Corpay is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CPAY with a market capitalization of $25.5 billion. In addition to its corporate payments arm, the company also offers products and services in vehicle payments and lodging payments.

Photo by Karthikeyan Perumal

• The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to suspend nearly all activities.
• The demand came in the form of an email from newly appointed Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Russell Vought.
• The CFPB was launched in 2011 as part of a sweeping set of reforms enacted in the wake of the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-2008.

The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to immediately suspend nearly all activities, according to a report from the Associated Press. The demand comes one week after President Trump removed the director of the CFPB, Rohit Chopra. The bureau, founded in the summer of 2011 via Title X of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Financial Protection Act, has been a target of conservatives for years. Even Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and head of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, has weighed in on the CFPB, claiming that the goal of the administration is to fully “delete” the bureau.

This is not the first time the CFPB has been told to stand down since President Trump was inaugurated. Within days of being named acting director of the bureau, Scott Bessent ordered employees to stop all bureau activities, settlement enforcement actions, and involvement in legal cases.

The latest directive to the CFPB came from newly appointed director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought late last week. The order demands that the CFPB cease work on proposed regulations and suspend the effective dates of rules that have been finalized but are not yet fully in force. Vought also ordered the bureau to stop any investigative activity — including new probes — and to end its supervision and examination efforts. The new director has even pursued the bureau’s funding, stating that the CFPB cannot withdraw its next round of funding from the Federal Reserve, which Vought referred to as “excessive.”

Further, the CFPB’s headquarters in Washington will be closed from February 10 through February 14, with workers and contractors expected to “work remotely unless instructed otherwise,” Vought indicated in an email to employees over the weekend.

So, what can the CFPB do, if anything? At this point, the bureau can still hear consumer complaints, even if it is no longer empowered to examine issues or launch investigations. Additionally, Vought’s order has been interpreted as forbidding the CFPB from engaging with companies it regulates, as well as with consumer advocates and similar outside organizations.

The CFPB has sued Capital One as recently as last month, claiming that the company had misled customers about its high-interest savings accounts, resulting in more than $2 billion in lost interest payments. Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren — who first conceived of the idea of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — decried the decision to suspend the CFPB’s activities, saying that Vought was “giving big banks and giant corporations the green light to scam families.” Of late Warren has suggested that there might be common ground between the CFPB’s mission and the concern that many conservatives and Republicans have about the phenomenon of “de-banking” — even if they disagree on which entities are being unfairly “de-banked.”

If Vought’s name sounds familiar, then it may have to do with his connection to Project 2025, a policy blueprint that was touted by many conservatives and Trump supporters during the presidential election in 2024, but was never fully embraced by Trump as part of the campaign. Many observers see the current moves in Washington to reduce headcount, control spending, and realign various agencies as part of the mission of Project 2025.

Interestingly, there remains some uncertainty about who will take over the CFPB on a permanent basis if the bureau does survive — as most observers view likely. At least two senior CFPB officials have announced their resignations in the wake of Vought’s email: Lorelai Salas, supervision director, and Eric Halperin, enforcement director. The Dodd-Frank Update reported that there are indications that the Trump administration has struggled to find someone interested in the job. In the first Trump administration, the CFPB was run by Mick Mulvaney, who served as acting director from November 2017 to December 2018, and Kathleen Kraninger, who took over from Mulvaney and served until Joe Biden assumed the Presidency in January 2021.

For more thoughts on how the Trump administration is likely to deal with the financial services sector, check out our January column, Will 2025 Be the Year of the Regulator or “Liberation Day” for Financial Services in the US?

Photo by Mathias Reding