Tennessee Levies Tax on Remittances
Tennessee will levy a $10 flat fee plus a 2 % surcharge on cross‑border payments exceeding $500, with the law taking effect on Jan. 1, 2027. The state projects about $54.8 million in annual revenue from the measure, based on roughly 16.3 million international money transfers worth $5.5 billion in the 2024‑25 fiscal year. The tax makes Tennessee the second state, after Oklahoma, to impose a levy on remittances and has drawn sharp criticism from fintech trade groups. Opponents argue the fee will raise costs for businesses and consumers and could drive users toward unregulated alternatives.
Upstart Posts $53.6M Profit as LendingClub Posts $135.7M, Intensifying AI Lending Rivalry
Upstart posted a $53.6 million profit on $1.1 billion revenue, while LendingClub earned $135.7 million on $1.3 billion revenue for FY 2025. The contrasting results underscore a clash between Upstart’s AI‑driven marketplace and LendingClub’s bank‑charter model as they vie for dominance in digital lending.
Falcon Finance And Anchorage Digital Bank Launch fUSD Stablecoin On Ceffu With 3% Institutional Rewards Target
Falcon Finance and Anchorage Digital Bank have introduced fUSD, a U.S. dollar‑pegged stablecoin that complies with the GENIUS Act and is issued by an OCC‑chartered bank. Each token is backed 1:1 by cash, short‑dated Treasuries and repo, with Deloitte providing...
Stablecoins Are Turning the Remittance Business Model on Its Head
Stablecoins are poised to overhaul the $700 billion global remittance market by offering real‑time settlement, lower fees, and blockchain‑based transparency. In a PaymentsJournal webinar, Fireblocks SVP Ran Goldshtein, MoneyGram CTO Luke Tuttle, and Javelin’s James Wester highlighted how stablecoin‑backed digital wallets...
Robinhood Launches Agentic Trading and Agentic Credit Card
Robinhood unveiled Agentic Trading and the Agentic Credit Card, letting AI‑driven agents execute trades and make purchases on users' behalf. The trading service launches in beta, currently limited to equities, with a separate agentic account that isolates funds and provides...
Robinhood Now Lets Your AI Agents Trade Stocks
Robinhood announced a beta feature that lets users create separate AI‑agent accounts linked to a dedicated wallet, enabling the agents to analyze portfolios and place stock trades on the user’s behalf. The platform will notify users of every trade, and...
DTCC, SDF Plan to Enable Tokenization of DTC’s Custodied Assets on Stellar Network
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and the Stellar Development Foundation announced a partnership to tokenize assets held by the Depository Trust Company (DTC) on the Stellar public blockchain. A December 2025 SEC no‑action letter clears the regulatory path,...
Crown Agents Bank Secures Guyana License to Anchor South American Transactional Banking Push
UK‑regulated Crown Agents Bank has been granted a permanent representative licence by the Bank of Guyana, allowing it to open an office in Georgetown in the second half of 2024. The invitation places CAB among only three foreign banks invited...
"The Banks Are Feeling FOMO" On Bitcoin Lending W/ SALT Lending CEO Shawn Owen | BMP Ep 10
In this episode, Bitcoin Magazine host Brandon Green chats with SALT Lending CEO Shawn Owen about the rapid evolution of Bitcoin lending, from early skepticism to institutional adoption. Owen highlights SALT's new "Salt Switch" product offering rates as low as...
Small Retailers Need More Than Tech to Adopt Digital Payments
A 2018 Mexican program gave free digital‑payment terminals to small retailers, but only 12 % were still using them after six months. Stanford researchers found that the main barrier was the complex setup, not device cost. Providing hands‑on installation, troubleshooting, and...
DraftKings Moves Deeper Into Prediction Markets With DKeX CFTC Filings
DraftKings has filed its inaugural event‑contract templates with the CFTC through its DKeX exchange, covering the GAMEPROPERTY and GAMEWIN product families. The contracts are binary, $1 notional, trade 24/7 and are capped at 125,000 contracts per market. By operating as...
StablR Hack Creates $13.5M in Unbacked Stablecoins, $2.8M Stolen
StablR, a Malta‑based stablecoin issuer, froze its USDR and EURR tokens after a 1‑of‑3 multisignature wallet was compromised, allowing attackers to mint $13.5 million of unbacked stablecoins and walk away with roughly $2.8 million. The breach highlights key security and regulatory risks...
Press Release: Huntington Bank Joins CHIPS® for High-Value Payments
Huntington National Bank announced its entry into The Clearing House's CHIPS network, the world’s largest private‑sector U.S. dollar clearing system. The move gives Huntington the ability to send and receive high‑value domestic payments through a platform that processes more than...
Sarah Breeden: Modernising Money and Markets
Sarah Breeden, senior official at the Bank of England, outlined a coordinated push to accelerate tokenisation across the UK’s financial system. She highlighted recent joint commitments with the FCA to modernise infrastructure and regulatory rules, positioning the UK as a...
PhonePe Crosses 10 Bn UPI Transactions for Second Straight Month in April
PhonePe, the Walmart‑backed digital payments app, processed 10.33 billion UPI transactions in April, marking the second consecutive month it crossed the 10 billion threshold. The platform accounted for 46.2 % of total UPI volume and 49.3 % of transaction value, roughly $172 billion. Overall UPI...
BitGo Completes Quantum MPC Simulation with FIPS 204 Standard
BitGo Holdings and Silence Laboratories have completed the first post‑quantum multi‑party computation (MPC) transaction simulation run by a regulated custodian. The demo leveraged Silence Labs’ new PQ‑MPC protocol built on the NIST‑approved ML‑DSA signature algorithm standardized in FIPS 204, and was...
Revolut Begins Rollout of Hungarian IBANs Following Local Branch Launch
Revolut has begun a phased rollout of Hungarian IBANs following the launch of its local branch in Hungary. New customers are already receiving HU‑IBANs, while existing users will be migrated gradually with personalized email timelines. The local account numbers are...
DECTA Study: 77% Of Digital Banking App Users Have Had a Payment Blocked, Chatbots Resolved Issues Just 11% Of The...
DECTA’s new study of 1,506 UK digital‑banking users and 159,600 app‑store reviews finds that 77% have had a payment blocked, declined or paused by their app. When users turn to in‑app AI chatbots, only 11% see their issue resolved, while...
Reports: Card Issuing in 1,000 Words; Banking in the Tokenized Economy; Three Types of Digital Money
A series of reports outline a sweeping shift in finance toward tokenization, digital money and real‑time infrastructure. They explain card‑issuing mechanics, categorize digital assets into CBDCs, deposit tokens and stablecoins, and argue that tokenization is now a strategic priority for...
Standard Chartered Launches Hong Kong Crypto Custody
Standard Chartered partnered with Solowin Holdings (AXG) to launch Hong Kong’s first institutional crypto custody service offered by a Global Systemically Important Bank. The solution, built in coordination with regulators and technology partners, targets regulated financial institutions and professional investors...
Stablecoins Just Hit a Record $322 Billion – and the Bank-Run Warnings Are Getting Louder
The global stablecoin market has surged to a record $322 billion, cementing US‑dollar‑pegged tokens as a mainstream settlement layer. A duopoly of Tether (USDT) and Circle’s USDC now controls over 80% of supply, fueling cross‑border remittances, merchant payments and corporate cash...
Interview: Oliver Prill, CEO of London Fintech Unicorn Tide
Oliver Prill, the modest‑mannered CEO of London‑based fintech Tide, highlighted the company’s milestone of reaching two million business customers in under a decade. Tide generated £190 million (≈$242 million) in revenue in 2024 but posted a £26 million (≈$33 million) loss, while its UK...
"Frustration With Uncertainty, Cost": FMA Chief Barrass on the Sandbox That Produced One Launch
New Zealand's Financial Markets Authority released a 15‑page report on its fintech sandbox pilot, which began in December 2024 with 24 applicants but admitted only six firms. Only one participant, Easy Crypto subsidiary ECDD Holdings, launched a product – the...
Google Pay Adds Faster Checkout Tools for Android Apps
Google Pay has added dynamic callbacks to its Android native app SDK, enabling developers to pull stored payment and address data from Google Wallet and update shipping, tax, and total price information without closing the checkout sheet. The feature mirrors...
AI Agents Settle $73M in Machine‑to‑Machine Payments, USDC Handles 98% of Transactions
AI agents have settled more than $73 million across 176 million transactions in the past year, driven by stablecoin‑based rails. USDC accounts for 98.6% of the volume, while major tech and finance firms pour billions into the emerging payment stack.
Agentic Commerce May Force New Focus on False Declines
Agentic AI is moving from recommendation and fraud‑prevention roles to actually initiating purchases on behalf of consumers. As these autonomous agents place orders, merchants and issuers must shift focus from merely blocking bad activity to confidently recognizing legitimate transactions. PYMNTS...
Nigeria, Kenya, Morocco Selected for AfCFTA Digital Identity and DPI Rollout
The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat has selected Kenya, Morocco and Nigeria to pilot the Africa Digital Access and Public Infrastructure for Trade (ADAPT) program. ADAPT will build shared digital rails for identity, payments and trusted data exchange,...
InComm, Zip Partnership Brings Buy Now, Pay Later to Gift Cards
Zip, the Australian‑based fintech, has partnered with Atlanta‑headquartered InComm Payments to embed Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) functionality into the gift‑card market. The integration lets eligible U.S. consumers select and finance gift cards directly within the Zip app, choosing installment...
High-Risk Payment Gateway With Instant Approval
NexaPay.one eliminates the weeks‑long underwriting process for high‑risk merchants by settling card payments directly into a crypto wallet. The platform accepts Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay and converts each transaction to USDC, USDT or Bitcoin in under a minute, requiring...
Even JPMorgan Payments Feels Pressure to Compete with Fintechs
JPMorgan Payments, the United States’ largest credit‑card issuer and merchant acquirer, moves roughly $12 trillion in transactions each day, peaking at $15‑$16 trillion. Facing new payment rails like blockchain and stablecoins, the unit is reshaping its technology approach to mirror nimble fintechs....
Fed Proposes Direct Settlement Access for Crypto Firms, Capping Balances at $1 B
The Federal Reserve announced a proposal to let qualified crypto‑native firms settle payments directly on Fedwire, FedNow, and other Fed services, imposing a hard $1 billion balance limit. The move follows Kraken’s limited‑purpose master account and a Trump‑signed executive order urging...
Executive Interview Series: Holli Targan, TSG Strategic Advisor
In a candid interview, payments veteran Holli Targan reflects on four decades of industry change, noting the surge of electronic payments while legacy card and ACH networks still dominate transaction volume. She highlights progress for women in fintech, yet points...
Philippines Moves Toward Stronger Biometric Security as OTP Risks Mount
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is moving to server‑side biometric authentication and will phase out SMS and email one‑time passwords (OTPs) for high‑risk transactions by June 2026. The shift responds to a surge in AI‑driven fraud, with 70,000 fraud complaints...
Plaid Targets ACH Payment Risk with New Guaranteed Settlement Solution
Plaid has introduced Plaid Guaranteed Payments, a new service that eliminates settlement risk for ACH transactions by assuming losses on failed payments. The solution leverages Plaid's AI‑driven Signal and Protect platforms to deliver millisecond‑fast approval decisions, achieving approval rates as...
Stablecoins Are Hard to Spend. This Startup Wants to Make It Easy.
Rach Finance, founded by Keji Pius and CTO Martins Chigoziem in January 2026, offers a non‑custodial payment gateway that lets African merchants accept USDT and USDC and settle instantly in local currencies. The startup has already processed about $250,000 across...
PayPal Shock Rattles Wall Street as Consumers Grow More Careful With Money
PayPal warned that its high‑margin branded checkout grew only 2% last quarter, triggering an 8% share drop and intensifying concerns over a broader consumer‑spending slowdown. The payments giant’s stock is down roughly 40% year‑to‑date and 80% from its pandemic peak...
Offa Partners with Knowledge Bank to Boost Broker Reach
Offa, a UK‑based Islamic property‑finance fintech, has partnered with Knowledge Bank to list its Sharia‑compliant finance criteria on the platform, making halal solutions easier for brokers to locate. Offa, the country’s first halal bridge‑finance provider, recently launched a paperless Home...
FDIC Insurance Remains Bank Edge as Stablecoins Expand
"What is going to differentiate a traditional bank from a nonbank permitted payment stablecoin issuer? We're getting to that point" Katherine on what's left that separates the two under the Genius Act "FDIC insurance. There's definitely going to be a sector of...
Instant Push-to-Card Payouts Now Available via IncreaseDev
Enterprise banking API provider @IncreaseDev, founded by early @Stripe engineer @darraghbuckley, just launched Push-to-Card transfers — to instantly send payouts to eligible Mastercard or Visa cards, 24/7 📲 Use cases: insurance claims, legal settlements, refunds, disbursements. Key features: • Funds delivered in seconds,...
Mastercard and Yellow Card Launch Stablecoin Payments Across Africa
Mastercard has teamed up with pan‑African crypto exchange Yellow Card to roll out stablecoin‑based payment options in more than 20 African countries. The partnership aims to simplify cross‑border transactions for freelancers, exporters and diaspora users, while sparking a competitive push...
UK Experts Argue Need for Tokenization Composability, Not a Replication of Legacy
Two UK asset‑management veterans, Stephen Whyman and Dr. Ian Hunt, released a paper urging the industry to move beyond merely digitising existing products. They argue that tokenisation should focus on composability, using a universal framework rather than bespoke smart contracts...
AI Platforms Give Financial Advice With Little Oversight, Robinhood Lawyer Warns
Robinhood’s chief legal officer, Daniel Gallagher, warned that generative‑AI platforms such as Anthropic’s Claude are already capable of giving personalized investment advice and even placing trades, yet they operate outside the SEC and FINRA supervisory regime. He highlighted the regulatory...
HELOC, HOA Lien Monitoring, AI, Developer Platform Tools; Webinars and Training
Elevated mortgage rates are throttling labor mobility, with 56% of workers turning down relocations and reshaping expectations around generational wealth. Builder sentiment has rebounded to pre‑war levels and pending home sales posted their strongest April reading since 2023, yet new‑home...
Fintech Fraud Prevention in 2026: How AI and Regulation Are Fighting Financial Crime
Financial crime losses surged to $579.4 billion in 2025, with 67% of banks and fintechs reporting higher fraud rates. AI that powers modern detection is now also being weaponized, enabling deepfake‑driven vishing, synthetic identities, and model‑evasion attacks. Regulatory pressure is intensifying...
The Impact of Reverse Factoring on MSMEs: Firm-Level Evidence From Mexico
A new study of Mexican micro, small and medium enterprises shows that adopting reverse factoring—a supply‑chain financing tool where buyers guarantee invoices—significantly lifts firm sales. The sales boost comes mainly from adding new customers rather than expanding existing orders. Benefits...
New Details Emerge About Pepkor’s Bank Launch Plans
South African discount retailer Pepkor Holdings aims to launch its own bank in April 2027, targeting 1.8 million primary banking customers within five years. The bank will leverage Pepkor’s network of over 6,500 stores and its existing financial‑services footprint of 22 million...
UK Fintech Hiring Set to Rise Driven by Payments Infrastructure
UK fintech hiring is projected to increase up to 14% in 2026, driven by demand for payments‑infrastructure roles. A Morgan McKinley and Vacancysoft labour‑market report says hiring focus will shift from neobanks to payments providers, engineering and IT positions. The sector...
Wednesday’s XRP Ledger Upgrade to Switch on Institutional Lending
The XRP Ledger will roll out software version 3.1.3 on May 27, 2026, after unanimous approval from all dUNL validators. The upgrade completes the bookkeeping framework for on‑chain asset vaults and activates the ledger’s native lending protocol. By enabling secure...
Hyperliquid Launches Fully Collateralized Prediction Markets, Challenging Polymarket
It's getting interesting: @HyperliquidX just expanded into prediction markets, taking aim at @Polymarket. HIP-4 now supports offchain event contracts — think Fed rate decisions, inflation data — settled by Hyperliquid's own validators instead of UMA's external oracle. Fully collateralized Yes/No contracts. Max loss...
Catena Labs Raises $30M and Secures OCC Approval to Pursue National Trust Bank Charter for AI Agents
Catena Labs, founded by Circle co‑founder Sean Neville, closed a $30 million Series A led by Acrew Capital and a16z crypto and received Office of the Comptroller of the Currency approval to seek a national trust bank charter. The funding and regulatory...