Today in the Connected Economy: Amazon Web Services Launches Health Project

Today in the connected economy, Amazon Web Services (AWS) tackles inequity in healthcare in the latest round of its AWS Healthcare Accelerator program. Plus, eCommerce platform sticky.io pairs its services with Shopify, and Stripe launches new tools to help businesses simplify their operations.

Amazon Web Services Launches New Healthcare Cohort

AWS has rolled out the next installment AWS Healthcare Accelerator cohort, this time focused on health equity. It builds on other efforts, including the AWS Health Equity Initiative, a global commitment to support innovations in the space. The two programs are part of AWS for Health, an offering of AWS services and AWS Partner Network solutions that are meant to help organizations speed innovation and find more personalized approaches to therapeutic development and care.

Shopify Merchants Now Can Integrate sticky.io Subscriptions App into Stores

sticky.io, which offers services for subscription management and recurring billing, will be pairing its services with Shopify. The company’s new app integrates with Shopify and lets merchants configure flexible subscription offers, with customizable billing and dynamic discounting. Brands can also offer mixed-cart checkouts to allow customers to buy a variety of subscription and single-sale products in the same transaction.

Stripe Apps Offer One-Stop Shop for Users, Allowing Developers to Broaden Reach

Stripe, a financial infrastructure platform for businesses, has launched Stripe Apps and the Stripe App Marketplace, which offer a one-stop-shop for more than 50 payments-related apps. Stripe App Marketplace includes apps from DocuSign, Dropbox, Intercom, Mailchimp, Ramp and Xero with apps still to come. Meanwhile, Stripe Apps lets businesses simplify operations and combine disjointed workflows.

Visa’s Cybersource Joins Spreedly Payments Program

Cybersource, a Visa-owned payment solution, has become a preferred partner in payment orchestration platform Spreedly’s Payment Service Provider Program. According to Spreedly, preferred partners work with the company to connect payment service partners, merchants and merchant aggregator customers. Using application programming interface (API) integration, Spreedly provides access to Cybersource’s products, such as fraud management, payment acceptance and security. The collaboration follows a long-standing partnership between the two organizations.

Nova Credit Teams With Alloy on Inclusive Business Lending

FinTech Nova Credit is working with identity decisioning platform Alloy to help lenders become more inclusive across the credit spectrum without raising the risk of fraud. San Francisco-based Nova Credit helps credit-excluded customers get access to credit and lets financial institutions (FIs) expand their potential customer base without risk.

BNPL Firm Splitit Expands Partnership With B2B Payments Platform BlueSnap

Buy now, pay later (BNPL) firm Splitit is expanding its partnership with payment orchestration platform BlueSnap, making BlueSnap Splitit’s preferred processing partner. The company’s goal is to offer new visibility and distribution for Splitit using BlueSnap’s network of mid-market and enterprise customers. BlueSnap’s services will support the processing of Splitit installment payments everywhere BlueSnap operates. BlueSnap will also act as Splitit’s preferred partner for processing installments for all joint and direct merchants.

Mercado Bitcoin, Stellar Team on CBDC Project

Latin American exchange Mercado Bitcoin has teamed up with the Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) for the LIFT Challenge Real Digital, a collaborative environment hosted by the Central Bank of Brazil and the National Federation of Associations of Central Bank Servers. The project explores use cases for a central bank digital currency (CBDC) for the region and will likely launch in the second half of 2022, piloted for a restricted audience in its first phase.