PayPal and Bilt Revolutionize Rent Payments Through Venmo Starting 2026

Digital payments giant PayPal partners with Bilt Rewards to transform how Americans pay rent—cutting out traditional banking middlemen entirely.

The Venmo Integration Play

Starting early 2026, users can bypass paper checks and bank transfers by processing rent and mortgage payments directly through Venmo's familiar interface. The move positions PayPal to capture a massive chunk of the $600 billion annual U.S. rental market.

Rewards Meets Real Estate

Bilt's loyalty program integration means tenants can finally earn points on their largest monthly expense—because nothing says financial innovation like getting airline miles for paying your landlord.

The timing couldn't be better as younger demographics increasingly demand digital-first solutions for everything from groceries to housing. Traditional banks now face their greatest threat yet: becoming completely irrelevant in the one payment category people can't avoid.

PayPal links with Mastercard to power AI-driven payments

In a separate development, PayPal is stretching its collaboration with Mastercard yet again, this time to introduce AI-powered transactions through Agent Pay, the platform that lets consumers make purchases guided by AI assistants.

Mastercard’s “secure payment” rails will back the process, integrating directly into PayPal’s branded checkout wallet, and will extend to all Mastercard co-branded cards that already operate within PayPal’s network.

PayPal will pilot Mastercard’s Agent Pay Acceptance Framework, which verifies and secures AI-initiated payments, but the integration relies entirely on tokenization and passkey authentication, allowing AI agents to authorize transactions safely and merchants to accept those payments without extra technical setup.

In its statement announcing the development on Monday, Mastercard said this system will “undoubtedly reduce friction and expand consumer choice as AI-driven commerce becomes mainstream.”

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