Today's Banking Pulse
HDFC Bank shares dip after camouflaged ₹45 crore payment report
Shares of HDFC Bank fell 2.6% to ₹758.65 after The Indian Express reported the lender routed an alleged ₹45 crore (≈$5.4 million) payment to the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation as a marketing expense, effectively offering higher deposit returns. The allegation revives governance concerns following the abrupt resignation of former chairman Atanu Chakraborty, though it is not expected to affect the CEO’s reappointment.
Also developing:
By the numbers: OakNorth acquires Monite to boost business banking
Open Banking, 1033, and the Agentic AI Catalyst - Steve Boms, Executive Director of FDATA
In this episode, Steve Boms, Executive Director of FDATA North America, outlines the current landscape of U.S. open banking, focusing on the pending amendments to the CFPB's Section 1033 rule and FDATA’s position that banks should not charge fees for consumer‑directed data access. He explains how a fragmented patchwork of state privacy, AI, and fintech regulations complicates progress, and argues that the rise of agentic AI—requiring clear consent, robust APIs, and liability frameworks—could finally drive meaningful open banking reforms. Boms also shares FDATA’s origins, its role in shaping policy over the past decade, and his concerns about regulatory Balkanization, while expressing optimism that AI will catalyze clearer, standardized rules.
Mortgage Rates Hold Flat on Thursday Despite Lower Weekly Average
Mortgage rates for the standard 30‑year fixed loan remained unchanged on Thursday, keeping them near the lowest levels seen in over three years. Freddie Mac’s weekly survey, which averages rates from the previous Thursday through Friday, reports a three‑year low despite...
Kentucky First Federal Bancorp Announces Termination of the Agreement By and Between First Federal Savings Bank of Kentucky and the...
Kentucky First Federal Bancorp announced that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has terminated its formal written agreement with First Federal Savings Bank of Kentucky, ending a regulatory oversight period that began in August 2024. The termination, achieved...
Global Payments' Turnaround Gets Off on the Right Foot
Global Payments reported fourth‑quarter net revenue of $2.3 billion, a 6 % year‑over‑year increase, while net income fell to $217.5 million, missing consensus forecasts. The results sparked a 13 % surge in the stock as the company completed its Worldpay acquisition and announced a...
Stablecoins Expand in Payments, Yet Most Activity Remains Internal
The episode examines a McKinsey-Artemis Analytics report showing that while stablecoins process roughly $35 trillion a year, only about $390 billion is tied to real‑world payments, with most activity still internal to exchanges, custodians, and protocols. External payment use is growing fast,...
Inside Addi’s Mission to Build a Fairer Financial System in Colombia
Addi, a Colombian buy‑now‑pay‑later fintech founded by Santiago Suarez, was born from a personal loss in the 1999 financial crisis and aims to reshape credit with transparent, fee‑free products. By building a lean technology platform and a two‑sided merchant network,...
TRANSCRIPT: Fed Governor Stephen Miran Talks Rates, Stablecoins and AI
Fed Governor Stephen Miran praised the appointment of Kevin Warsh, noting his hawkish reputation could give the Fed more credibility and make larger rate cuts easier. He highlighted systematic biases in inflation measurement—particularly portfolio‑management services and lagged shelter data—that have...
Neobank Middle Class Repriced: Acquisitions Turn Users Into Infrastructure
Two massive neobank acquisitions just happened. Stash sold to Grab for $425M (below its $747M raised) and Step got acquired by MrBeast. The neobank middle class is getting repriced: if you can't hit escape velocity, you become infrastructure for someone else's...
Metropolitan Commercial Bank Forges Partnership with Finzly
Metropolitan Commercial Bank (MCB) has partnered with Finzly to replace its legacy ACH mainframe with a cloud‑native, API‑first payment platform that consolidates ACH, wires and real‑time payments on a single system. The bank is the first to adopt Finzly’s unified...
Anchorage Digital Launches Regulated 'Stablecoin Solutions'
Anchorage Digital has introduced Stablecoin Solutions, a federally regulated service that lets banks settle USD transactions globally in near‑real time via blockchain. The offering bundles minting, redemption, custody, treasury and settlement under Anchorage Digital Bank, N.A., overseen by the OCC,...
Warren Warns Fed, Treasury Against Crypto Bailout
Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell demanding a written commitment that the government will not bail out the crypto industry. She cited Bitcoin’s roughly 50%...
Saving Banks From Technical Debt: How Atruvia Built Secure, Self-Service Infrastructure
Atruvia, the backbone of over 900 German cooperative banks, tackled massive technical debt by adopting HashiCorp Terraform and Vault. The shift to infrastructure‑as‑code slashed cluster provisioning from three months to two hours and cut network setup from weeks to minutes....
Fast Calculation of Cheapest-to-Deliver Curves
Multi‑currency collateral agreements create optionality that requires discounting with a cheapest‑to‑deliver (CTD) curve. While Monte‑Carlo simulation can price this exactly, it is computationally heavy. Researchers propose an analytic approximation that combines the Clark algorithm and Gauss‑Hermite quadrature, delivering near‑Monte‑Carlo accuracy...
Stripe's Bridge Secures First Step Toward Nationwide Stablecoin Charter
Stripe's Stablecoin Firm Bridge Wins Initial Approval of National Bank Trust Charter Joins Circle, Ripple, BitGo, Paxos, Fidelity Digital—all got conditional OCC approval Dec 2025. Anchorage Digital (2021) remains only crypto firm with finalized charter. National charter = operate across all...
Today’s Podcast Episode: The Consumerization of Small Business Lending: Federal and State Regulations Accelerate
Today's Consumer Finance Monitor podcast examines the rapid consumerization of small‑business lending, highlighting a surge in state‑level protection statutes. Host Alan Kaplinsky interviews Louis Caditz‑Peck of the Responsible Business Lending Coalition about the shift from self‑regulation to formal legislation, including...
Visa to Buy Prisma in Argentina
Visa announced it will reacquire Argentina’s Prisma Medios de Pago and Newpay from Advent International, bringing the payment processors back under its control. The acquisition, expected to close by the end of March, restores Visa’s card‑issuer processing, real‑time payments, ATM...
Remitly Co-Founder CEO Exits
Remitly announced that former Santander executive Sebastian J. Gunningham will replace co‑founder Matt Oppenheimer as chief executive effective Thursday. Oppenheimer, who led the company for nearly 15 years, will move to board chair and focus on strategic initiatives. The leadership...
Remitly Hires Santander Alum as Its Next CEO
Remitly announced Sebastian Gunningham, a former Santander Consumer Finance chair with executive experience at Amazon, Apple and Oracle, will become its chief executive on Thursday. Co‑founder Matt Oppenheimer will transition to board chair as the company reported a strong 2025...
Subprime Demand Drives US Loan Growth to New Heights
Subprime borrowers propelled U.S. unsecured loan balances to a record $276 bn, a 10% increase year‑over‑year, with 26.4 million consumers holding such loans. Credit‑card issuers expanded lending to lower‑income customers, pushing total balances 4% higher to $1.15 trillion, but responded by trimming initial...
Quarterly Report Tracks Stablecoin Paradigm Shift
Today, @TheStablecon and @Artemis drop "The State of Stables," our quarterly report on the trends driving the fast-moving stablecoin ecosystem. It’s impossible to know today what the legacy of stablecoins will be. Entrepreneurs have barely begun to challenge the dominant paradigms in...
British Business Bank Explores Private Equity with £60m Deal
The British Business Bank announced a £60 million commitment to NorthEdge IV, marking its first foray into private‑equity investments under a new growth‑equity strategy. The government‑owned development bank will back the Manchester‑based firm’s fourth fund, which targets founder‑led SMEs across technology, healthcare...
Criminals Outpacing Banks as Firms Struggle with AI Defence, Report Warns
A new State of Financial Crime 2026 report from ComplyAdvantage reveals that financial institutions are falling behind AI‑enabled criminal networks. Over 600 senior compliance leaders reported 99% detection weaknesses, with only 33% employing AI for core AML functions and manual...
World Briefs | Rwanda Hikes Lending Rate on Higher Inflation
Rwanda’s central bank raised its key lending rate by 50 basis points to 7.25% on Thursday, reacting to a jump in consumer price inflation to 8.9% year‑on‑year in January. The move aims to bring inflation back within the bank’s 2‑8%...
Toast Courts Fast-Food Restaurants
Toast, the Boston‑based restaurant point‑of‑sale provider, announced it will launch a drive‑thru product aimed at quick‑service restaurants later this year. The move marks a strategic shift from its traditional focus on casual‑dining chains such as Applebee’s and Potbelly. In 2025...
Clip’s Tap to Pay and Other Digital Transactions News Briefs From 2/19/26
Clip, the Mexico‑based payments‑tech firm, introduced tap‑to‑pay for Android devices, extending the functionality of its recently launched Clip Total 3 POS. In parallel, Wirex rolled out Stablecoin Push‑to‑Card using Visa Direct, while Justt announced an AI‑driven chargeback solution for franchise networks....
Elizabeth Warren Has Questions About the Shake-Up Inside the Fed’s Banking Regulator
Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote to Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman demanding details on recent internal changes within the Fed’s banking‑supervision division, including reported job cuts and the sidelining of senior examiners. The request also asks for a...
Open Banking’s Paywall Era – and What It Means for Banks, Fintechs, and Policy in 2026
J.P. Morgan now handles nearly two billion API requests each month, but only about 13% stem from direct customer‑initiated actions. Historically, open‑banking data flowed freely, enabling budgeting apps, lending tools and countless fintech services. In 2025 the bank began negotiating paid...
Crypto Cuts HELOC Origination Cost From $11K to $730
Why does it cost $11,000 to originate a HELOC? Most industry experts would point to regulatory and compliance hurdles. After all, it's one of the few departments in FIs that keeps growing. @mcagney and @Figure proved otherwise: 45 days → 5 days to...
Bank Relevance Demands Challenger Mindset, Not Just Tech
No amount of technology or marketing will make a bank relevant without a challenger mindset. Culture determines whether innovation ever reaches the customer. We discuss this with @EFulwiler, CEO of Rival. Watch the full episode: https://t.co/Y31f7tnfQ6 https://t.co/hmRJoRouya
ClearBank Appoints Ex-Uber Exec to Oversee European Expansion
ClearBank has appointed former Uber payments chief Tristan Kirchner as its European CEO to accelerate the bank’s cross‑border growth. The fintech already holds an EU banking licence and serves more than 30 clients across multiple markets. Kirchner will oversee the...
Real‑time 24/7 Global Payments Now Available Instantly
At @Lightspark we first focused on the most difficult global money movement problem: realtime, 24/7 P2P for banks. It gave us superpowers now available for B2B, B2C payouts, global pay-ins/virtual accounts, and treasury management. Same day setup: https://t.co/1cRJucmFKd
Wells Fargo Confirms No Hidden Incentives in $1.4B Loan Sale
Finian O'Shea of Wells Fargo just asked this question on this morning's $OBDC conference call and mgmt confirmed nothing behind the scenes, no bonus economics or shenanigans behind the $1.4bn private credit loan sale at par value to 4 institutional...
From Convenience to Crime: How Payment Apps Stand to Reshape Business Fraud
Businesses of all sizes are embracing peer‑to‑peer payment apps such as Venmo, Zelle and Cash App to streamline vendor payments and employee reimbursements. The convenience has sparked a surge in fraud, with New York regulators reporting more than $390 million in losses...
Armstrong Blames Trade Groups, Urges Banks to Embrace Stablecoin Yields
NEW: Brian Armstrong says banking trade groups, not individual banks, are blocking crypto market structure progress, and that banks should see stablecoins with yield as an opportunity, not a threat https://t.co/fU43imp3Gg
Modern Treasury Unveils Payment Orchestration and Stablecoin Strategies
New pod just dropped: @ModernTreasury CEO @mattgmarcus & lead counsel @regulatorynerd joined me to discuss MT's new payment service provider capabilities, who needs payment orchestration, the stablecoin gold rush & so much more. Find it where ever you get pods or...
Banks that Won on Deposit Growth in 2025 Got Boost From M&A
Regional banks with $10‑$100 billion in assets leveraged mergers and acquisitions to outpace the broader market in 2025, boosting core deposits by more than 8% versus the industry’s 4% average. The 27 midsize lenders that completed deals saw a collective 29%...
Serving Customers Banks Shun: CreditOne’s Strategy
[New Episode] How to Serve the Customers Most Banks Avoid. Interview with Steve Min, Chief Credit Officer of @CreditOneBank. Watch the latest episode now: https://t.co/wUIHckaAy4 https://t.co/A9qJ3lPsUy
Modern Treasury Redefines PSP Standards for 2026
Modern Treasury just became a PSP competing with Stripe and Adyen. But that undersells it massively. What they really did was rethink what a PSP needs to be in 2026. 👇 https://t.co/UQF88miBKC
DBS Pilots System that Lets AI Agents Make Payments for Customers
DBS Bank, in partnership with Visa, has launched a pilot that enables AI agents to complete payments on behalf of customers using tokenised card credentials. The trial, dubbed Visa Intelligent Commerce, has already processed real‑world transactions such as food and...
Push‑to‑Card Enables Instant Fiat Payouts From Stablecoins
Push to Card solves a major issue for off-ramping. Often getting stablecoins anywhere was easy. Getting them to fiat was hard. Pushing the stablecoins to cards does two things 1. Gets there instantly/24*7 2. Can be spent as fiat instantly For payouts use cases its a...
A Public-Private Partnership: Central Banks as a Funding Backstop
The authors analyze the Bank of England’s 2012 Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) and find that central‑bank liquidity acts as a backstop that improves private wholesale funding conditions rather than merely substituting for them. By lowering banks’ wholesale funding costs,...
Bank of Ireland UK Fined for Late Security System Implementation
The UK arm of Bank of Ireland was fined £3.78 million by the Payments Systems Regulator for a 14‑month delay in deploying the Confirmation of Payee (CoP) system. The lapse left 1.14 million new payees and roughly £7 million in payments without fraud‑prevention...
Denis Beau: The Regulatory Framework for Securitisation
Denis Beau, representing Banque de France and ACPR, highlighted the strategic role of asset‑backed securities (ABS) in the euro‑area monetary‑policy framework, noting they account for roughly 30% of collateral despite representing less than 5% of eligible securities. He stressed that...
Swaminathan J: Values in Action - the Making of a Strong Institution
Axis Bank honored 100 employees as "Champions" for embodying five core values—customer centricity, ethics, teamwork, transparency, and ownership—highlighting culture as a strategic asset. The speech stressed that success hinges on how results are achieved, not just the results themselves. By...
UBS Accelerates AI to Transform Banking Operations
UBS Steps Up AI Initiatives to Reshape Banking Operations - Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News - FintechNewsCH https://t.co/lzgbtiumUP
Paytently Strengthens Regulatory Compliance and Fraud Defence with SEON Partnership
Paytently, a Malta‑licensed payment institution, announced a partnership with fraud‑prevention specialist SEON to embed the latter’s command‑centre technology into its orchestration platform. The integration brings real‑time AML screening, risk scoring, device intelligence and centralized case management to the core of...
Sport, Trade and Visa
Visa Consulting & Analytics reports that the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan boosted overseas Visa cardholder visits by more than 60%, with U.S. travelers up 160% year‑on‑year. European visitors, especially from Germany, also surged, driving average spends of €297, €267...
A Brief Illustrated History of the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet: 1914-2026
The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has undergone dramatic swings since its 1914 inception, expanding modestly for decades before exploding after the 2008 financial crisis. Between 2008 and 2022 the sheet grew from roughly $0.9 trillion to over $9 trillion, driven by large‑scale...
Fintech Digitizes 2,000‑year Red Packet Tradition
🌏🧧How #Fintech is transforming the 2,000-year Red Packet tradition: Technology is not only transforming how business is done within the industry but even culture itself. Today, an increasing number of red packets are being shared via online solutions at banks during...
Bloomberg: Leveraged Lending Insights – 2/16/2026
The US leveraged loan market opened 2026 with extraordinary vigor, posting $168.2 billion in new issuances during January—the strongest monthly total in over a decade. By mid‑February, activity slowed dramatically, with only $25.9 billion of new deals launched through February 18, the lowest...