News

Checkout.com Uses AI To Boost eCommerce Acceptance Rates

Intelligent Acceptance leverages the company’s global data network to increase acceptance rates, lower fees, and improve merchant’s profits.

Published

3 years ago

July 4, 2023

Nour Nasir

Checkout.com

Global payments solution provider, Checkout.com, has launched a new feature called Intelligent Acceptance. The system uses an AI-powered optimization engine that can monitor billions of transactional data points, with early beta testing showing a 9.5% average improvement in checkout acceptance rates.

“We believe in abstracting complexity for businesses and empowering them to optimize their payments with ease. Machine learning enables us to […] leverage our expansive global transaction data to provide real-time insights. Meanwhile, an adaptive AI-powered payments engine constantly optimizes acceptance rates, unlocking more revenue, saving time, and offering greater cost controls,” says Meron Colbeci, Chief Product Officer at Checkout.com.

False declines — legitimate transactions mistaken for fraud attempts and subsequently blocked — are a $50.7 billion problem globally. Intelligent Acceptance can route card payments through the system much more smoothly, using continuous adaptation while leveraging Checkout.com’s global network and direct relationships with card acquirers to deliver incremental improvements.

Also Read: A Guide To Digital Payment Methods In The Middle East

Intelligent Acceptance can also drive down a merchant’s costs by dynamically routing transactions to the network with the lowest fees. Furthermore, if a transaction requires 3DS authentication, data can be automatically added to a payment request to ensure compliance.

The launch of Intelligent Acceptance comes as business leaders seek new ways to drive revenue and improve cost efficiencies to reconcile increased expenses. Research conducted by Checkout.com in partnership with Oxford Economics recently revealed that up to 25% of consumers abandoned an online purchase due to too much checkout friction, resulting in significant lost revenue for merchants.

News

Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

3 days ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

Also Read: Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power

The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.