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.
Bitcoin IRAs Offer Solution to Retirement Savings Crisis
Crazy stat: 20% of Americans over 50 have ZERO retirement savings. The traditional system isn’t working… so many of us turned to Bitcoin as the main plan. Self-custody matters. Sovereignty matters. For long-term retirement planning, tax strategy can matter too. I sat...
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,...
Exclusive: Eric Trump Calls Maldives Hotel First of Many Real Estate Tokenization Projects
World Liberty Financial announced the tokenization of loan revenue from the Trump International Hotel & Resort in the Maldives, marking the first project in a broader on‑chain real‑estate strategy. The initiative is being built with real‑estate developer DarGlobal and tokenization...
Etherfi, Scroll’s Top Fee-Generator, Leaves for Optimism
Etherfi, a decentralized neobank and crypto‑card issuer, announced it will migrate its Cash accounts, over 70,000 active cards and roughly 300,000 user accounts from Scroll to Optimism’s OP Mainnet. The move will shift about $160 million in total value locked and...
India Extends UPI One World Pilot for International Visitors at AI Impact Summit 2026: Does It Signal Global Rollout?
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has extended its UPI One World wallet service to international visitors attending the India AI Impact Summit 2026. The extension is a temporary, invitation‑only pilot that allows foreign delegates to make real‑time payments...
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,...
Boards Urge CFOs to Embrace Stablecoins for Crypto Adoption
Great to be back on with @MariaBartiromo discussing Ripple’s banner year and accelerating momentum as we start 2026. Already, we are actively seeing Boards and CEOs pushing their CFOs and treasurers to understand how they can leverage and benefit from...
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,...
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....
Jump Secures $80M to Expand AI for Financial Advisors
Jump secured $80 million in Series B funding, led by Insight Partners, to build an AI operating system for financial advisors. The round brings total capital to $105 million and reflects rapid adoption, with the platform now serving over 27,000 advisors and adding...
PayPal’s PYUSD Supply Crosses $4 Billion
PayPal’s PYUSD stablecoin surpassed a $4 billion market capitalization, cementing its status among the largest digital dollars. On Arbitrum One, PYUSD’s circulating supply rose to roughly $256 million, making it the fourth‑largest stablecoin on the layer‑2 network. The surge is linked to...
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...
Lightkeeper Rolls Out AI-Powered ‘Beacon’ to Deliver Verifiable Portfolio Insights
Lightkeeper has introduced Beacon, an AI‑enabled feature that lets hedge funds and asset managers ask plain‑English questions about their portfolios. The tool pulls answers from Lightkeeper’s validated, institutional‑grade data rather than unverified sources, preserving transparency and auditability. Beacon connects client...
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...
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...
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...
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....
CTrader Admin 9.9 Released with Email Tracking and New Workspace App
Spotware Systems released cTrader Admin 9.9, the latest broker‑focused upgrade to its cTrader operational suite. The version adds email tracking in session reports, a new Workspace Settings app that consolidates export, chat and notification preferences, and a collapsible main menu that...
How AI Upgrades Enterprise Treasury Management
Enterprises are shifting treasury management from error‑prone spreadsheets to AI‑driven automated pipelines. Infosys’ Ashish Kumar and IBS FinTech CEO CM Grover highlight that real‑time data integration with ERP, trading platforms, and banks is essential for AI to add value....
Deutsche Börse's €5.3B Allfunds Deal Creates Integrated DMI
Deutsche Börse is acquiring Allfunds for €5.3B, marking the largest infrastructure deal of 2026. Advancing towards a vertically integrated Digital Market Infrastructure (DMI). From clearing to owning the digital ledger of the entire fund lifecycle. Deutsche Börse Group and Allfunds Group Sign...
Klarna Delivers $1bn Quarter but Shareholder Returns Take Beating
Klarna posted a record fourth‑quarter revenue of just under $1 billion, a 38% year‑on‑year rise, while gross merchandise volume hit $38.7 billion, up 32%. Active customers grew to 118 million, and the firm continued its push to become a full‑service bank. Despite the...
Agentic Finance Platform Stacks Raises £17m
Fintech startup Stacks announced a £17 million ($23 million) Series A round, led by Lightspeed Ventures and joined by EQT Ventures, General Catalyst and S16VC. The company, which emerged from stealth after an £8.9 million seed, offers an AI‑ready data layer that consolidates fragmented...
Exclusive: Plaid CTO Talks AI Strategy, New Foundational Model to Power Next Phase of ‘Intelligent Finance’
Plaid announced a new transactional foundational AI model, built in‑house from its de‑identified financial data, to power what it calls “intelligent finance.” CTO Will Robinson said the model moves Plaid beyond open‑finance connectivity toward smarter, personalized transaction insights and tighter...
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...
KYA Now
The episode explores the emerging "Know Your Agent" (KYA) paradigm, arguing that the next bottleneck in the agentic economy is identity rather than intelligence. Drawing on insights from Sean Neville of Circle and recent industry reports, the host explains how...
Agility in the Face of Compliance and Risk
In an interview, Mohan Paranthaman and Karthik Iyengar of We Build Products argue that compliance agility, not sheer technology scale, is the true differentiator for banks and fintechs. They cite their experience at Citi, Shopify and other institutions to show how small,...
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...
Earn 9% APY and Win $25K USDC
Shoutout to @FigureMarkets for backing the show—and giving Unchained listeners a shot at $25K in USDC 🎯 Earn hourly yield (~9% APY) and enter the sweepstakes just by depositing. Details: https://t.co/ylK4YMjA3N
Digital Payments Rivalry: Paytm Leans on Merchant Edge as PhonePe Scales Volume, Say Brokerages
PhonePe dominates UPI transaction volume with a 51% market share, while Paytm commands only 6% but leads merchant‑payment monetisation. Paytm’s merchant device network and loan services generate higher margins—about 9 basis points versus PhonePe’s 4—resulting in ₹38.6 billion revenue and ₹2.8 billion...
Crypto's Trillion‑dollar Market Is Vastly Under‑appreciated
Most people under-appreciate how large the addressable market is for crypto. Crypto is updating the entire financial system, from trading to payments to lending and more. Multiple trillions of dollars of revenue up for grabs.
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...
Agent Economy Bottleneck Shifts From Intelligence to Identity
New on the not-a-newsletter... KYA Now https://t.co/QX96zNPFUt Sean Neville, co-founder of Circle, was quoted in A16Z’s “17 things we’re excited about for crypto in 2026”. He said that the bottleneck in the agent economy “is shifting from intelligence to identity”. https://t.co/eUPxXe5X4K
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
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...
Earn Bitcoin by Holding USDC with Coinbase One
New way to stack sats: hold USDC, earn Bitcoin. Sometimes the smaller features are the coolest ones. Coinbase One members can choose to receive their weekly rewards in either BTC or USDC, rolling out now.
Gemini Adds Crypto and Credit Card Funding for Prediction Markets
NEW: Users can now fund their prediction market trades with crypto and credit cards on Gemini 🤝 https://t.co/HJZcd1AuOZ
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...
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
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...