Paywhere launches AI banking channel so banks and credit unions can serve customers inside the AI tools they already use

• Following its live debut at FinovateFall, Paywhere makes its AI Banking Storefront commercially available.
• A financial-grade connective layer keeps financial institutions central as customers shift their financial lives into AI tools.
• The programmable banking platform addresses the critical gap for small businesses first, with broad application across retail and commercial banking.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Paywhere today announced the commercial availability of its programmable banking platform, giving banks and credit unions a secure way to serve their customers through the AI assistants, applications, and agents they already use. Both business and retail banking customers increasingly use platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot as the operating system where work gets done. Paywhere provides the financial-grade connective layer that safely brings the institution into these environments, allowing customers to work in the AI platform of their choice while keeping the institution's brand, accounts, entitlements, permissions, and controls intact.

"For years, banks and credit unions have watched fintechs win relationships they spent decades building, and the deposits have followed those relationships out the door," said Girish Mutreja, founder and CEO of Paywhere. "AI can accelerate that or reverse it. Customers are moving their financial lives into AI either way. AI will be the new interface of banking and the institutions that meet them there, on their own terms and under their own controls, have a real chance to own the relationship again and stay relevant in the age of AI. "

Financial institutions have spent the past decade losing critical financial activity to non-bank platforms. More than $3 trillion has moved out of banks and credit unions and into fintechs, neobanks and digital investment platforms over the past five years, according to research from Cornerstone Advisors.

AI has changed where customers do their financial work and gives institutions an unrivaled opportunity to build deeper client relationships than digital banking ever allowed. Yet, only 7% of banks and 17% of credit unions have deployed AI in some form so far, according to Cornerstone Advisors.

"Banks and credit unions don't need to build AI to stay relevant. They need to be connectable to the AI their customers already trust, and that's what programmable banking makes possible," said Brett Vasconcellos, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Paywhere.

Small businesses are where that gap is widest. There are 36.2 million small businesses (SMB) in the U.S., making up 99.9% of all U.S. businesses. Most banks offer them either retail products too simple for their needs or commercial products too complex and costly for their size. Many owners already use AI to manage cash, pay bills and keep their books, and they expect their bank to work inside those tools rather than send them back to a separate portal. The use of AI in SMBs is rapidly scaling, Claude for Small Business launched in May 2026 and Anthropic announced on September 17 that it had over 900,000 installations.

Paywhere closes that gap without asking institutions to build their own AI. The institution decides what is permitted, sees every interaction and keeps the customer relationship. Paywhere works alongside existing core, digital, and bank operating systems, with no in-house engineering team required.

Paywhere demonstrated the platform live at FinovateFall in New York on Sept. 10, showing a customer handling banking tasks through an AI assistant with the institution's controls in place throughout.

Paywhere's whitepaper, "The Era of Programmable Banking: Why the Future of Financial Services Speaks Code," examines the forces reshaping banking and what institutions need to respond.

About Paywhere
Paywhere enables banks and credit unions to serve their customers inside the AI tools and software those customers already use. Its programmable banking platform works alongside existing core and digital systems and keeps the institution in control of the customer relationship, the product roadmap and the economics. The era of programmable banking is here. So is Paywhere. Learn more at www.paywhere.com.

Media contact
Sam Barber, Pitchr.ai
[email protected]

SOURCE Paywhere