← All opinionUnited States
Regulated by SEC, FINRA, CFTC, CFPB. Monetary authority: Federal Reserve.
The regime that governs published opinion here: Investment Advisers Act — the publisher’s exclusion covers bona fide publications of general and regular circulation, which is the ground a commentary site stands on.
PaymentsFinOpine desk · Oct 15, 2026
JPMorgan Chase says outside AI agents cannot reach into retail accounts. The security case is real — but a blanket perimeter with no published route through it settles who owns the customer relationship, not who is safe.
Our viewRefusing outside AI agents access to accounts makes sense while nobody has decided who pays when an agent misfires. It stops making sense the moment the bank's own assistant is allowed to do what rivals cannot.
Financial crimeFinOpine desk · Oct 14, 2026
Treasury announced the largest penalty in the OCC's 163-year history and then credited it against FinCEN's. The cash figure is honest; the superlatives are not. And no structural remedy was imposed at all.
Our viewTwo agencies announced record-breaking fines, then credited one against the other, so the bank pays far less than the headlines add to. And no growth limit or published remediation deadline came with it.
SanctionsFinOpine desk · Oct 13, 2026
Trump says Moscow will immediately ship diesel to American markets. Nothing moves until the Treasury writes the permission down — and banks should not act on an announcement.
Our viewA president can announce a deal, but only the Treasury can make it lawful for a bank to pay for it. Until a written licence exists, no firm should move the cargo — and the announcement has already cheapened the sanctions it suspends.
Financial crimeFinOpine desk · Oct 12, 2026
The Board says American Express failed to detect and report certain suspicious activity, and that its group-wide programme broke down at its bank. It does not say how much, for how long, or what fixing it looks like.
Our viewThe action against American Express is justified and lands in the right place. But the Fed's announcement tells the public nothing about how big the failure was, how long it ran, or what fixing it means.
Fair lendingFinOpine desk · Oct 9, 2026
HUD says Wells Fargo's race-conscious mortgage programmes break the Fair Housing Act. If that is the government's position, it belongs in a published rule that binds everyone — not a letter to the first mover.
Our viewIf the government now believes these programmes are illegal, it should say so in a published rule that binds every lender from a stated date — not in a letter to the one bank that announced its programme first.
Stablecoin reservesFinOpine desk · Oct 8, 2026
Modern Treasury and Rain applied for the same federal trust charter on the same day to do opposite things. One has promised not to issue a stablecoin. The other wants to issue one and hold its competitors' backing assets.
Our viewHolding your competitors' reserve assets while issuing a competing stablecoin is a conflict, not a custody service. The OCC should approve Rain's charter only with that separation written into the order.
Bank charteringFinOpine desk · Oct 7, 2026
A national trust charter buys supervision and a name. It does not buy an account at the Federal Reserve — and for a stablecoin payments firm, that is the only question that matters.
Our viewThe charter is the easy half. Whether a stablecoin payments firm can hold its money at the Federal Reserve is the decision that actually matters, and the Fed should answer it in public before the queue gets longer.
Bank charteringFinOpine desk · Oct 6, 2026
Modern Treasury has asked to become a national trust bank. The charter is a legitimate thing to want — but the Comptroller should publish what it permits, and what it does not, before granting the next one.
Our viewA trust charter is a reasonable thing to want, and escaping state-by-state money transmitter licensing is a worthy goal. But the Comptroller should publish what the charter permits, and whether it implies access to the payment system, before granting the next one.
Crypto custodyFinOpine desk · Oct 5, 2026
The SEC has proposed a dedicated custody framework for advisers holding crypto. Judge it on one question: when the custodian collapses, who can still sign the transaction?
Our viewA custody rule only matters on the day the custodian fails. This one should be judged on whether it forces proof that nobody else holds a copy of the keys — and says in advance who bears the loss when someone does.
Fed governanceFinOpine desk · Oct 2, 2026
The watchdog found mismanagement and no crime. The finding worth arguing about is buried in the recommendations: years into a multibillion-dollar build, nobody has agreed a maximum price.
Our viewWhether a crime occurred was always the least useful question. The finding that matters is that a multibillion-dollar build is years in with no agreed price ceiling — and a central bank that funds itself has no appropriator to impose one.
PaymentsFinOpine desk · Oct 1, 2026
Five national mobile payment schemes have agreed to link up against Visa and Mastercard. Interoperability is the easy half. Refunds, fraud liability and one contract per merchant are what the incumbents actually sell.
Our viewLinking Europe's payment apps solves the easy problem, which is reach. What makes cards hard to dislodge is the rulebook behind them - refunds, fraud liability, one contract per merchant - and none of that has been published.
Bank capitalFinOpine desk · Sep 30, 2026
The Fed will set capital add-ons from a two-year average from 2028 — while admitting, in the same announcement, that the model behind fee income losses needs fixing. Smooth first, accurate later is the wrong order.
Our viewAveraging two years of stress test results makes a bank's capital requirement smoother, not more accurate — especially when the Fed has just admitted one of the models feeding it needs fixing. Fix the model first, then average.
Bank capitalFinOpine desk · Sep 30, 2026
Publishing the models behind the US stress test is a genuine reform. Damping how much the resulting capital requirement can move is a separate decision, and it travelled in under the same cover.
Our viewPublishing the Fed's stress test models is overdue and right. Damping how much the resulting capital requirement can move is a separate decision that mostly benefits the banks, and it was bundled in with the popular half.
StablecoinsFinOpine desk · Sep 29, 2026
US prosecutors have seized bank accounts at a payments firm working for Tether. Whatever that case turns out to be, it exposes a layer of stablecoin plumbing that no reserve rule reaches and no attestation shows.
Our viewThe rules being written cover what backs a stablecoin, not the bank accounts the money passes through on its way in and out. Those accounts can be frozen overnight, and holders are not told they exist.
StablecoinsFinOpine desk · Sep 28, 2026
The Federal Reserve's stablecoin proposals spell out what must back a token. The governor who supports them says the holder's right to redeem it still needs to be made clear in the final rule.
Our viewThe Fed has drafted the rules for what backs a stablecoin but left the holder's right to redeem it as an open question. Backing without a universal redemption right regulates the money, not the promise.
Cross-border paymentsFinOpine desk · Sep 25, 2026
Speed is not what makes sending money overseas expensive — the exchange rate is. And a payment that lands in seconds strips out the half hour in which American law lets a sender cancel.
Our viewSpeed is not what makes sending money abroad expensive — the exchange rate is. And an instant, irreversible payment quietly removes the half hour in which American law lets a sender cancel. The Fed should settle both before it builds.
PaymentsFinOpine desk · Sep 24, 2026
A tokenised deposit network for banks “of all sizes” has an announced technology partner and no published rules on finality, loss allocation or access pricing. Those are the network.
Our viewNaming the technology supplier is the easy part. Until the network publishes who bears losses, when a payment becomes final and what small banks pay to join, calling it “interoperable” is a marketing claim, not a design.
PaymentsFinOpine desk · Sep 23, 2026
SoFi Bank is moving its card programme onto its own stablecoin with Mastercard. Settlement means the obligation is discharged in an asset nobody has to trust. A self-issued IOU is not that.
Our viewHanding someone a token you issued yourself is not settling a debt; it is swapping it for a promise with a redemption queue behind it. Before this goes live, the rulebook should say exactly when the obligation is legally discharged.
SanctionsFinOpine desk · Sep 22, 2026
An FT investigation says a Kremlin-linked fintech pushed billions through international banks. The control that failed was never strong: banks match strings against lists, using data supplied by the party with a motive to lie.
Our viewName-matching against lists was never a real control, because the names are supplied by whoever wants the payment to clear. Regulators should test whether screening catches disguised payments, and publish how often it does.
Monetary policyFinOpine desk · Sep 18, 2026
Raising rates into a war premium, a tariff programme and an investment boom is the right call. The scandal is that it took all three, on top of a long overshoot, to produce it.
Our viewRaising rates now is right, and upsetting the President is not a reason to avoid it. The real failure is the years of above-target inflation that came first, which will make this correction bigger than it needed to be.
Bank supervisionFinOpine desk · Sep 14, 2026
US regulators have put draft third-party risk guidance out for comment and, separately, addressed how small banks deal with their core providers. The second document quietly concedes the first one's weakness.
Our viewGuidance binds the bank, not the supplier it cannot replace. Telling a small bank to negotiate better terms with its core provider asks the weaker party to fix a market it did not make.
Bank supervisionFinOpine desk · Sep 11, 2026
Widening eligibility for the longer examination cycle is a reasonable risk-based judgment. Selling it as a cut in cost, rather than a reallocation of scarce examiner time, means nobody ever has to prove it worked.
Our viewStretching the inspection gap for small, well-run banks is sensible, because frequency was never the same thing as vigilance. But the agencies sold it as cost relief and never said where the freed examiner time goes.