Let the newcomers in, and examine them
The community banks' lawsuit is framed as a defence of the charter. Its practical effect would be a federal regulator keeping new competitors out of payments.
OCTOBER 11, 2026
TopicBanking
A bank charter should come with a bank's obligations
The trust charter was built for custodians. It should not become federal standing for payment companies without deposit insurance, capital rules or community duties.
OCTOBER 11, 2026
Thirteen billion dollars, inadequately reported
American Express's national bank has been fined $350m by the OCC, and the Federal Reserve has ordered the parent to fix its controls. The regulator says about $13bn of suspected trade-based money laundering went unreported over nearly eleven years.
OCTOBER 10, 2026
Revolut points its listing at the US
Nik Storonsky says a primary US listing was always the target if Revolut goes public, though not before 2028. In the meantime he wants credit cards and loans in America that match JPMorgan's and American Express's, once Revolut has a full banking charter.
OCTOBER 9, 2026
Rain applies for the charter the community banks are suing over
The stablecoin card company wants a national trust bank to hold reserves and issue coins. It filed one business day after community bankers sued the OCC over that kind of charter, and its pitch leans on the word the lawsuit is about.
OCTOBER 6, 2026
The charter picks the arithmetic
Three federal banking regulators have each described a path for banks to issue stablecoins — four, if you count the one that supervises credit unions. Not one of those paths is a rule. They are proposals, they answer the same sentence of the GENIUS Act with three different sets of numbers, and the statute switches itself on in 114 days regardless.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2026
Two hundred and seventy-seven questions
The Federal Reserve Board voted seven to nothing on Thursday to put two proposed rules for payment stablecoin issuers out for comment. It has decided nothing. The notices run to 452 pages, ask 277 numbered questions and have not yet reached the Federal Register, so the sixty days has not started — but the reserve list inside them is an answer to the balance sheets this desk opened yesterday.
SEPTEMBER 25, 2026
Two remortgages and a marketplace
Seven British banks moved tokenised sterling between each other on Thursday in the first live customer transactions of their kind. The settlement is not the interesting part. The condition attached to it is.
SEPTEMBER 24, 2026
SoFi settles its card book in its own coin
The first national bank to issue a stablecoin is now using it to settle its card programme across Mastercard. The token matters less than the fact that the bank issuing it holds the money on both sides.
SEPTEMBER 22, 2026
Russia caps bank crypto at one per cent
Draft rules from the central bank would hold every bank's total crypto exposure to a hundredth of its capital, and weight what remains at 1,250%.
SEPTEMBER 21, 2026
The ledger nets, the old rails settle
Singapore's three largest banks paid each other in tokenised deposits for the first time. The shared ledger matched the obligations; the money still moved the old way.
SEPTEMBER 16, 2026
Chime buys the bank it was renting
$590m in cash for a seven-year partner, at about one and a half times tangible book. The rented charter was supposed to be the cheap way to avoid becoming a bank.
SEPTEMBER 15, 2026
The request came from a real government domain
Revolut says an impersonator used a legitimate government email domain to file fraudulent data requests. The control that fails here is one almost every institution relies on.
SEPTEMBER 14, 2026
Canada rules that a token is still a deposit
The supervisor says the technology used to record a deposit does not change what it legally is, which removes the question banks had been waiting on.
SEPTEMBER 12, 2026
India's payment rail goes looking for borrowers
UPI settled 314 trillion rupees and made almost nothing doing it. The credit products now being built on top are where the economics were always going to come from.
SEPTEMBER 12, 2026
India's central bank argues against making fintechs into banks
The objective is not to make fintechs resemble banks, a deputy governor said, while the RBI weighs a proposal that would end the revolving credit line as a product.
SEPTEMBER 11, 2026
U.S. Bank finishes a stablecoin pilot on its own
USBDC settled on Stellar in a test that covered minting, redemption, freezing and clawback — the four functions a supervised issuer actually needs.
SEPTEMBER 11, 2026