The company on Thursday (May 14) reported first-quarter revenue of $1 billion, up 44% year over year, while gross merchandise volume rose 33% to $33.7 billion. The earnings presentation also showed active consumers rising 21% to 119 million and merchants increasing 49% to 1.1 million.

Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the company’s strategy centers on building a broader payments ecosystem that stretches beyond traditional BNPL.

“We are still spend-centric not lend-centric,” Siemiatkowski said on the earnings call. “Pay later means we start small with every new customer. A $100 transaction repaid in weeks. That’s how we get to know each other.”

The company said it is now live with the majority of the top 100 online retailers in the United States, where Klarna has increasingly pushed its “fair financing” installment product. Executives said most borrowers using those longer-duration installment loans are existing customers with established repayment histories.

Klarna’s U.S. business remained a key growth engine during the quarter. GMV in the United States rose 39% to $7.1 billion, representing 21% of total GMV. Revenue in the market climbed 67% to $399 million.

The company’s fair financing business, tied to its point-of-sale installment offering, generated $4.1 billion in GMV during the quarter, up 138% year over year. Klarna said 225,000 merchants now offer the product, compared to 103,000 a year earlier.

Everyday Spending

Management added that the company is trying to achieve parity and ubiquity with traditional payment networks by offering payment methods suited for different merchant categories including subscriptions, groceries, ridesharing and airlines.

That strategy also appeared in the company’s debit and card business. The company has detailed that card product surpassed 5 million users globally during the quarter. Siemiatkowski said debit usage on the card has been stronger than expected.

“What I’m particularly pleased about with the card is obviously its high growth,” he said. “The additional thing that I find interesting and happy about as well is that the debit side of the card is stronger than we initially expected.”

Klarna executives said the card is becoming part of consumers’ everyday spending habits, helping deepen engagement with the app while creating additional cross-selling opportunities.

Chief Financial Officer Nicholas Neglén said membership fee revenue tied to the card business increased more than 600% year over year during the quarter. He added that card users transact roughly three times more frequently than non-card users and generate materially higher revenue over time.

The broader engagement push is also feeding Klarna’s banking and deposit operations. Siemiatkowski said 91% of the company’s funding base now comes from consumer deposits with an average duration of 270 days.

“Everyday spend feeds the deposits. Deposits fund the originations,” he told analysts.

Credit Quality Holds Steady

Despite broader concerns about consumer health and pressure on lower-income households, Klarna executives said delinquency trends remained stable.

Neglén said 30-day-plus delinquency rates in Klarna’s pay-later portfolio remained “stable and well managed,” while delinquency rates in the fair financing portfolio declined sequentially. The company’s earnings presentation showed charge card equivalent delinquency rates at 1.6% for 30-plus days past due and 0.9% for 60-plus days past due.

Executives attributed that performance to the company’s short-duration lending structure and transaction-level underwriting model.

Management also discussed its emerging agentic commerce strategy during the call, framing Klarna as a payment layer inside AI-driven shopping experiences.

“Agentic commerce needs three things and we own all three of those. That’s trust, data and transaction layer,” Siemiatkowski said.

He pointed to integrations with Google Pay inside Gemini and Klarna’s position within Stripe Link as examples of how the company is trying to secure a place inside future AI-driven purchasing flows.

Looking ahead, Klarna reiterated its full-year guidance, including GMV above $155 billion and adjusted operating income above 6.9% of revenue.

Shares surged 16% in early trading on Thursday.

Speaking during the company’s earnings call for the quarter ended March 31, Wu said that AI-related product revenue now accounts for 30% of its Cloud Intelligence Group’s revenue and that it will account for more than 50% in about a year.

Alibaba Group’s Cloud Intelligence Group, which includes what it calls “AI + Cloud” businesses, saw its revenue increase 40% year over year, according to a presentation released Wednesday.

“Given the certainty of long-term AI demand and our full-stack technology advantages, we expect this trajectory to sustain strong growth over the medium to long term,” Wu said.

The group’s AI revenue has seen triple-digit growth for 11 consecutive quarters. This has brought AI product revenue to where it accounts for 30% of the group’s revenue, per the presentation.

“We are at a pivotal inflection point in the evolution from conversational chatbots to autonomous AI agents, which is directly driving explosive growth across three core workload categories: training, inference and agent orchestration,” Wu said during the call. “Against this backdrop, Alibaba’s AI has moved beyond the initial investment phase and progressed commercialization at scale.”

Amid this growth, Alibaba Group’s EBITDA fell by 61% year over year, which the company said was primarily attributable to its investment in technology businesses, quick commerce and user experiences, according to a Wednesday earnings release.

Asked by an analyst how the company’s management balances its aggressive AI spending against earnings stability, Wu compared it to investing in factories in order to profit from manufacturing in the future.

“We see the ROI [return on investment] on this investment in the next three- to five-year period as being extremely clear,” Wu said.

Overall, during the quarter, Alibaba saw year-over-year revenue growth of 3%. When revenue is compared on a like-for-like basis, with revenue from two businesses that Alibaba sold (Sun Art and Intime) excluded, that figure rises to 11%, according to the earnings release.

Alibaba Group’s two eCommerce businesses, which it dubs “consumption businesses,” grew at a slower pace. Alibaba China E-commerce Group and Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group each saw a revenue increase of 6% year over year, according to the presentation.

Alibaba Group’s “all others” segment saw its revenue drop by 21% year over year. The company said the decline was primarily due to its sale of Sun Art and Intime.

The company released earnings Wednesday (May 13) showing its net profit more than tripled to 1.83 trillion yen, or $11.6 billion.

SoftBank has invested more than $30 billion in OpenAI and said it had recorded a cumulative $45 billion increase on that stake in the last year, much of it during the fourth quarter. This helped offset losses on investments in companies such as Klarna.

The company’s initial investment in OpenAI came in 2024, when the artificial intelligence (AI) startup was valued at $150 billion. That figure has since ballooned to $852 billion following a record round of funding last month.

A report on the earnings by the Financial Times notes that SoftBank’s ability to take part in the funding rounds that have boosted OpenAI’s valuation — which can then in turn bolster SoftBank’s numbers — has caused some analysts to express concerns.

The report cites a note from analyst Atul Goyal at Jefferies, who has characterized the situation as “circular funding dynamics,” writing in a note that of the estimated $70 billion in actual cash OpenAI has raised in the last year, nearly 85% has come from SoftBank.

“This concentration creates a self-reinforcing valuation loop,” Goyal wrote.

In other OpenAI news, PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster wrote about the company’s efforts — and those of Amazon — to develop a device to take on Apple’s iPhone.

“The conventional analysis of these moves focuses on whether OpenAI or Amazon can compete with the iPhone,” Webster wrote. “History would say, whoa, not so fast. The Fire Phone. Windows Phone. Facebook phone. The graveyard of failed smartphone challengers is deep and well-populated with some of the biggest names in tech. Then again, maybe that was then and this could be what’s next.”

The question, she added, is not whether OpenAI is able to outsell Apple. Rather, it’s what happens when a company that has 900 million weekly active users and 50 million paying subscribers decides that it wants to stop accessing those users via another firm’s hardware.

ChatGPT is the largest tenant in the Apple App Store, with Apple taking a piece of every subscription sold through it.

“That’s a business relationship that works until it doesn’t. And OpenAI is clearly signaling that it wants to own the full stack,” Webster wrote.

The company reported first-quarter revenue of $442.7 million, up 10% year over year.

Wallets, eCommerce and Agentic Commerce

Paysafe CEO Bruce Lowthers said on the Wednesday (May 13) conference call that the quarter reflected continued momentum across sports betting, digital wallets and Latin American markets, alongside investments designed to support AI-enabled commerce.

Lowthers also pointed to accelerating adoption of Paysafe’s wallet products across Europe and Latin America. Active users reached 7.9 million in the quarter, up 9% year over year.

The company’s digital wallets segment generated $216.3 million in revenue, up 15%, while wallet volume increased 19% to $7.1 billion. Within merchant solutions, eCommerce revenue increased 17%, led by 28% growth in iGaming. Paysafe also highlighted strong activity tied to the NFL playoffs, Super Bowl and March Madness.

Lowthers said the company is increasingly focusing on how payments infrastructure can support agentic commerce models where artificial intelligence assistants initiate transactions on behalf of consumers. He told analysts, “With one integration, Paysafe can enable merchants to offer AI powered commerce across ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini along with their own portal and apps.”

According to Lowthers, the company sees agentic commerce as “a meaningful evolution in how transactions originate.”

The company also continued leaning into automation internally. Paysafe management noted on the conference call Wednesday that nearly 60% of consumer support interactions were resolved through digital assistance channels during the quarter, up 25% from a year ago.

Latin America and Wallet Adoption Gain Momentum

Latin America remained one of the company’s strongest growth engines.

Paysafe said its local payments network and wallet offerings continue gaining traction across the region as consumers shift from cash toward digital payment methods. The company reported that Latin America active users reached 3.3 million during the quarter, the highest level to date.

The company’s PagoEfectivo Wallet product was also highlighted as a contributor to user growth and engagement. Paysafe said its Latin America network now spans roughly 400,000 collection points and covers about 90% of local payment method coverage across key markets.

Lowthers said the company’s wallet expansion in Europe is also gaining ground.

“We are much more aggressive about consumer acquisition today than we ever have been,” Lowthers said during the Q&A session.

He also said PaysafeWallet recorded its strongest month on record in March.

Credit Losses Pressure Margins

Even as revenue trends strengthened, the company acknowledged pressure described as being temporary in nature.

Lowthers said Paysafe experienced “increase in credit losses while converting to a new risk management platform.”

He added that the losses “were contained over the course of a few weeks beginning in March and shouldn’t have an impact on the business going forward as our models continue to mature.”

Those higher losses weighed on profitability in the merchant solutions segment. Adjusted EBITDA for merchant solutions declined to $28.1 million from $29.4 million a year earlier, while adjusted EBITDA margin fell to 12.2% from 13.5%.

CFO Highlights Investments and Outlook

Chief Financial Officer John Crawford said the company’s results also reflected elevated investments in marketing and technology infrastructure.

The company ended the quarter with a leverage ratio of 5.2x, down from 5.5x at the end of 2025.

Looking ahead, Paysafe reaffirmed its full-year guidance. The company continues to expect revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA growth in the range of 5% to 8%.

Shares soared 14% in early trading on Wednesday.

Consumer loan marketplace volume, as reported on Tuesday (May 12), reached $2.9 billion in the first quarter, up 113% year over year, while adjusted net revenue climbed 92% to $167 million.

The company said growth was driven by expansion across multiple business lines, including Figure Connect, first-lien mortgage products and newer lending categories tied to real estate investors and small businesses. Figure Connect represented 56% of overall marketplace volume during the quarter, while first-lien volume increased threefold year over year. Debt service coverage ratio, or DSCR, and residential transition loan activity grew 70% quarter over quarter.

Michael Tannenbaum, Figure’s CEO, said the company’s growth is increasingly tied to its ability to attract larger institutional partners while expanding the types of loans moving through its marketplace.

Tannenbaum said Figure is seeing especially strong traction in first-lien mortgages and business-purpose lending, including DSCR and residential transition loans often used by real estate investors. He noted that the company’s lower cost structure gives it an advantage in smaller-balance first-lien lending.

“Last quarter, I dubbed 2026 the year of the first lien,” Tannenbaum told analysts. “Today, I’m pleased to share first-lien volume now accounts for 20% of our total.”

Figure Connect Metrics Grow

He added that the company’s economics are improving as more lending activity moves onto Figure Connect. “For Connect, on average, we see over two times monthly volume on a same partner basis six months after launching on Connect,” Tannenbaum said.

Tannenbaum said Figure’s products are increasingly positioned around tapping housing wealth more efficiently, particularly as traditional mortgage activity remains pressured by interest rates.

“We see the opportunities there as not only the existing first-lien origination market,” he said, “but also FinTechs and home improvement companies that historically don’t consider themselves in this space, but look to tap home equity.”

The company also stressed that many of the loans being originated are in categories that previously had been underserved by traditional lenders.

Mortgage-related activity remained a central part of the quarter’s performance. Executives highlighted the growing role of first-lien products and pointed to demand from banks and mortgage originators looking for more efficient ways to participate in the market.

Chief Financial Officer Macrina Kgil said the company’s financial performance reflected both rising scale and a more diversified mix of lending products and marketplace activity.

Kgil added that March marked the first time the company surpassed $1 billion in monthly marketplace volume.

The CFO also pointed to artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives as part of the company’s longer-term efficiency strategy. “This is the power of our AI-driven efficiency roadmap,” she said.

Looking ahead, Figure projected second-quarter consumer loan marketplace volume between $3.8 billion and $4.1 billion.

Shares were up 2.4% in early trading on Tuesday.

“These efforts help ensure the company has a strong foundation and ample growth opportunity going forward, as well as in its next chapter with Smith Ventures and CommerceOne,” Jacobs said in the release.

Green Dot announced in November that it was selling its nonbank financial technology business and operations to Smith Ventures, which is a private equity company, and its Green Dot Bank to CommerceOne Financial, which is the parent company of Birmingham, Alabama-headquartered CommerceOne Bank.

The company did not host an earnings call about its first-quarter financial results because of these proposed transactions, according to the Monday release. The closing of the transactions remains subject to shareholder approval, regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions.

“The parties received early termination of the waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act and have filed regulatory applications to all applicable U.S. federal and state bank authorities,” the company said in the release.

In the first quarter, Green Dot grew its total operating revenues 17% year over year to $656.2 million, its net income 109% to $53.8 million, and its diluted earnings per common share 98% to 93 cents.

The company’s first-quarter performance was led by its tax processing business and outperformance in several other divisions, Green Dot Chief Financial Officer Jess Unruh said in the release.

“As we continue making investments that support top-line growth, we are also building a culture of cost discipline that helps drive our bottom-line results, as we benefited from modestly lower operating expenses in the quarter,” Unruh said.

During the first quarter, Green Dot announced in a March 5 press release that money transfer company DolFinTech introduced new demand deposit accounts (DDAs) powered by Green Dot’s embedded finance platform.

The companies said in the release that DolFinTech serves outbound remittance markets in the United States, Canada and Spain to more than 20 destination countries, and that the new DDAs are designed to empower Hispanic and other underserved communities.

DolFinTech has more than 500 company stores, 5,000 retail agent locations and a growing digital presence, per the release.

In its Monday press release, Green Dot said: “In the first quarter of 2026, Green Dot maintained a strong pipeline of prospective partners that continue to present substantial growth opportunities via its fee-based transaction revenues and through deposits that are strategically invested in high-quality, interest-bearing assets.”

The PYMNTS Intelligence report “The Embedded Finance Scale Factor: How Firm Size Shapes Strategy, Technology and Partnership Decisions,” a Green Dot collaboration, found that about 80% of small and middle-market firms plan to upgrade their embedded finance capabilities within the next 12 months.

Overall, during the first quarter, Priority saw its revenue increase 11.1% year over year to reach $249.6 million, according to a Monday (May 11) earnings release.

The firm’s Payables segment saw the fastest growth, with a 36% year-over-year increase boosting its revenue to $32.4 million, according to supplemental slides released Monday. The Payables segment offers payables and financing solutions, automates reconciliation and provides ways to optimize working capital and earn cash back. Priority attributed this segment’s growth to a 37% increase in buyer-funded revenues and a 31% increase in supplier-funded revenues.

Priority Chairman and CEO Tom Priore said during a Monday earnings call that Payables is gaining larger customers and larger volumes.

“We have had the view when we acquired the business that this was really well situation to move upmarket towards really marketing more as a working capital solution for larger organizations, and that is just starting,” Priore said. “What the numbers you are seeing is that manifesting.”

Priority’s Treasury Solutions segment saw 17% year over year growth and reached $58.8 million. This segment’s Passport solution automates reconciliation, streamlines financial operations and provides users with full transparency into their liquidity. Priority said in the presentation that Treasury Solutions saw a 20% increase in billed clients, bringing the total to 1.1 million.

Priority’s largest segment, Merchant Solutions, saw its revenue increase 7% year over year and reach $161.8 million. This segment offers point-of-sale and merchant acquiring solutions. In the presentation, the company attributed Merchant Solution’s growth to a combination of 4% organic growth and its acquisitions of Boom Commerce and Dealer Merchant Solutions in the second half of 2025.

Priority Chief Financial Officer Tim O’Leary said during the call that Merchant Solutions continued to see softness in some industry sectors it flagged in past earnings calls, including restaurants, construction and legal services.

“Where we saw strength was real estate,” O’Leary said. “As we continue to expand some of our property management solutions and real estate tech, we continue to see growth there, which I would argue is more us taking share than it is the market necessarily continuing to grow in real estate, so I think that is a positive for us.”

This segment also saw growth in retail trade as well as food stores and grocery, in part due to rising prices in those sectors.

Priority expects its first-quarter growth to continue throughout the year. The company affirmed its full-year 2026 guidance, which forecasts revenue to grow between 6% and 9% compared to 2025, per the earnings release.

O’Leary said the company’s forecast is based on “strong momentum across our business segments, combined with high visibility into continued performance for the remainder of the year.”

They are increasingly tasked with sustaining premium valuations while simultaneously absorbing the costs of expansion, compliance and platform development.

That was the dominant narrative on Circle’s first-quarter 2026 earnings call Monday (May 11), where the stablecoin issuer and digital asset infrastructure provider framed itself not as a payments company, but as an economic operating system being built for the future.

“Circle is an early-stage company just starting to execute our long-term strategy,” Circle co-founder, CEO and chairman Jeremy Allaire said. “We are entering a fundamentally different era of software-powered money… at internet scale and velocity.”

“With the ARC token presale, momentum behind the Arc network and the launch of our Agent Stack, we are building trusted infrastructure for AI-native economic activity and a more programmable internet financial system,” Allaire added.

In its financial materials and on the call, the company emphasized the convergence of artificial intelligence systems and blockchain-based economic coordination. Circle described a future where “software machines, powered by AI, deliver an increasing share of the world’s economic activity.”

Read also: Stablecoin Settlement Brings Cross-Border Interoperability to Local RTP Networks

A Broader Bet on the Next Iteration of the Internet Financial System

The central thesis of Circle’s leadership is that autonomous AI agents will increasingly require mechanisms for identity, payments, coordination and programmable execution. Traditional payment rails were designed for humans and institutions, not agentic software entities capable of initiating millions of low-value transactions in real time.

Circle believes stablecoins can become the native monetary layer for these systems.

The company’s new Circle Agent Stack represents its clearest move in that direction. The platform includes agent wallets, programmable payment infrastructure, micropayment rails and marketplaces intended to allow AI agents to transact independently using Circle’s USDC stablecoin.

One of the most notable features is “Nanopayments,” which Circle said enables gas-free USDC transfers as small as one-millionth of a dollar. The capability targets a future where machine-to-machine commerce becomes economically viable at scale.

In practical terms, Circle is betting that autonomous AI systems will eventually require a financial layer optimized for software rather than humans. If that thesis proves correct, the opportunity extends beyond cryptocurrency speculation and into the architecture of digital commerce itself.

The company also announced that it raised $222 million in a presale of ARC tokens at a fully diluted valuation of $3 billion, with participation from investors, including BlackRock, a16z crypto, ARK Invest and others.

Arc is being positioned as an enterprise-grade Layer-1 blockchain optimized for payments, tokenization and financial settlement. Allaire described it as an “Economic OS for the internet.”

“If you’re a platform company like Circle, it’s very clear that AI-driven and agentic-driven infrastructure and automation is going to be very central,” he said.

See also: Stablecoin Fragmentation Creates New Risks for Businesses

The Stablecoin Business Is Expanding

Operationally, Circle’s core stablecoin business continued to grow with circulation of its USDC stablecoin rising 28% year over year to $77 billion in the quarter, while on-chain transaction volume surged to $21.5 trillion, a 263% increase from the prior year. The company generated $653 million in reserve income during the quarter, accounting for most of the company’s total revenue of $694 million.

As long as interest rates remain elevated, Circle can continue to benefit from the yield generated on reserves backing USDC. When, or if, rates normalize, reserve income could compress materially. Circle’s growing push into software, infrastructure and AI services cited by executives on Monday’s call appears designed to diversify before that compression arrives.

Circle also highlighted expanding enterprise integrations across firms, including Meta, Mastercard, Deutsche Telekom-backed Banking Circle, DTCC, Fireblocks and Standard Chartered.

Still, Circle now resembles a company straddling three identities simultaneously, including a regulated financial institution, a crypto infrastructure provider and an AI-era software platform. Each may require substantial investment, specialized talent and regulatory coordination.

Findings in the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Stablecoins Gain Ground: Why CFOs See More Promise There Than in Crypto” from March revealed that while 42% of middle-market companies have at least discussed stablecoins, only 13% have reported actual stablecoin use. Businesses that wish to use stablecoins have indicated they are more interested in joining forces with banks than with crypto firms.

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According to executives on DraftKings’ Friday (May 8) first-quarter 2026 earnings call, competition is increasingly centered on infrastructure, data science and product integration.

CEO Jason Robins framed “sports predictions” as the company’s next strategic frontier, describing the category as a massive adjacent opportunity capable of reshaping how consumers engage with live sports. Rather than treating prediction markets as a side business, DraftKings is integrating them directly into its flagship app and building what Robins repeatedly called a nationwide “super app” for sports engagement.

The company’s first-quarter 2026 earnings offered more than a strong financial update. Revenue rose 17% year over year to $1.646 billion, while adjusted EBITDA climbed 64% to $168 million. DraftKings also posted its second consecutive quarter of positive net income, a milestone that would have seemed distant during the industry’s subsidy-heavy expansion phase.

But the most consequential message from management was not about profitability. It was about reinvention.

See also: DraftKings Sees Slower 2026 Growth Despite $10 Billion Prediction Market Opportunity

DraftKings Eyes Evolution from Sportsbook to Exchange

The deeper story inside DraftKings’ earnings is not simply about revenue beats or guidance misses. It is about corporate identity. For years, DraftKings benefited from being viewed as an insurgent growth company operating in a newly legalized market. Investors rewarded expansion above all else because the category itself still felt unfinished.

Today, DraftKings is increasingly confronting the inevitable consequence of market maturation. Many of the largest states that were likely to legalize sports betting already have. Customer acquisition costs are stabilizing rather than collapsing. And competition among the leading operators has evolved from a land-grab battle into a contest centered on retention, engagement and product differentiation.

In DraftKings’ case, that means sports betting, prediction markets, fantasy contests, casino gaming, media integrations, payments and live-event engagement, all operating within a unified ecosystem.

The clearest signal of DraftKings’ ambitions lies in its infrastructure investments. The company is not merely layering prediction products onto an existing sportsbook. It is building the underlying mechanics of a financial exchange.

The company reported that annualized prediction consumer volume surpassed $1 billion in April, while total volume traded exceeded $2.3 billion. Customer acquisition costs for prediction products also dropped more than 80% after integration into the main DraftKings app.

Management also disclosed on Friday’s call that DraftKings has already launched internal market-making operations and plans to introduce a proprietary exchange ahead of the World Cup. Those capabilities are central to how modern financial marketplaces operate: market makers provide liquidity, exchanges facilitate transactions, and pricing models determine efficiency and profitability.

Robins acknowledged as much during the earnings call, arguing that whether the consumer experience is structured “as a bet or a contract,” the underlying drivers remain the same: liquidity, pricing accuracy, customer trust and seamless execution.

See also: Prediction Markets Turn Uncertainty Into a Business Model 

AI and Regulation Are Changing the Industry’s Economics

At the same time, company execs suggested that internal operating leverage is accelerating because of AI-enabled workflows. According to CFO Alan Ellingson, some teams are now operating at two to three times prior-year productivity levels under what he described as an “AI-first execution” model.

As Ellingson stressed, artificial intelligence (AI) is not merely reducing customer-service costs or automating coding tasks. It is changing how quickly product organizations can iterate. In industries dependent on constant optimization, from gaming to advertising to financial trading, speed increasingly can become a competitive moat.

For DraftKings, faster iteration may prove especially important in prediction markets, where user behavior, liquidity dynamics and regulatory structures are all evolving simultaneously. DraftKings expects to invest between $200 million and $300 million into prediction-related initiatives during 2026, spanning marketing, technology and customer acquisition.

Prediction markets also occupy an unusual position in the U.S. regulatory environment. Unlike traditional sports betting, which requires state-by-state legalization and licensing, certain prediction products can potentially operate under federal frameworks that bypass some state restrictions.

Robins argued that prediction markets are beginning to alter conversations with lawmakers, particularly in states that have not legalized online sports betting. The existence of federally accessible prediction products, he suggested, weakens arguments for maintaining restrictive state policies while simultaneously creating pressure against increasing taxes on regulated sportsbooks.

DraftKings therefore faces a delicate balancing act. It must continue proving that its core sportsbook business can generate expanding profitability while simultaneously investing in entirely new categories that may define the next decade of digital wagering.

That strategy framed the company’s first-quarter earnings call, where executives argued that financial institutions are shifting technology budgets toward platforms capable of supporting AI deployment inside tightly supervised banking environments.

The company also outlined plans to build AI agents focused initially on financial crimes investigations. As noted in the earnings materials, FIS estimates that roughly $2 trillion in illicit funds move through the global financial system annually, while anti-money laundering operations account for an estimated $35 billion to $40 billion in yearly industry spending.

CEO Stephanie Ferris said banks increasingly want AI systems that can operate inside established compliance frameworks rather than experimental standalone tools. “They are looking for us to help you really think about how do you deploy it in a regulated way,” she told analysts. “How is it auditable? How is it traceable?”

Banking Budgets Shift Toward Digital Infrastructure

In Banking Solutions, revenue rose 7.7% on a pro forma basis during the quarter year on year. Banking revenue increased 10.3%, while payments revenue rose 5.9%.

Recurring revenue growth within Banking Solutions reached 5.2%, and non-recurring revenue climbed 58.1%, helped by new distribution agreements with technology partners.

Executives repeatedly returned to digital banking, money movement and cybersecurity as the primary spending priorities among banks. Ferris said institutions are spending aggressively on payment infrastructure, fraud controls and digital customer experiences as they prepare for more automated banking environments.

“Demand is really strong,” Ferris told analysts. “They’re spending money in digital because obviously we’re all continuing to interact with them in a digital way. They’re spending money on payments and they’re really looking for how they’re going to be able to compete in a digital currency way.”

The company’s recurring annual contract value sales rose 24% year over year. Banking recurring annual contract value (ACV) increased 13%, while capital markets ACV climbed 45%. Lending-related ACV rose 63%, digital ACV increased 25%, and Money Movement Hub ACV tripled from the prior-year period.

FIS executives argued that tokenized deposits may give banks a more controlled path into digital assets than externally issued stablecoins. Ferris said banks want digital currency capabilities but remain focused on regulated infrastructure and practical use cases.

Capital Markets Faces Lending Slowdown

Capital markets revenue rose 2.9% during the quarter.

Still, executives acknowledged pressure inside lending-related businesses tied to market volatility and weaker debt issuance activity. Ferris said syndicated lending activity slowed as borrowers pulled back amid macroeconomic uncertainty.

Chief Financial Officer James Kehoe characterized the lending softness as temporary but said the company adopted a more cautious posture for the remainder of the year. “It truly is just a temporary slowdown in the market,” Kehoe said, while noting that lending-related recurring ACV sales still increased roughly 60% during the quarter.

Executives also discussed consolidation opportunities and cross-selling tied to the Total System Services acquisition. Ferris said banks are increasingly interested in combining issuer processing, debit, credit and core banking data to support more sophisticated customer targeting and credit decisioning.

The company reiterated its full-year guidance, including projected pro forma revenue growth of 5.1% to 5.7%. Shares slipped 4% in early trading on Friday.

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