WaperBank-issued digital money reaches consumers as stablecoin rules advance
HSBC and SoFi brought bank-issued digital money to consumers, while JPMorgan expanded tokenized deposits to Ethereum and the OCC finalized its first GENIUS Act rule. A Google Cloud outage also disrupted Revolut’s core services, exposing the operational dependencies behind digital banking.
Key developments
HSBC takes stablecoins public
HSBC launched RedCoin, its first stablecoin, for public use, rolling it out to more than 3 million everyday app users.
Bank-issued stablecoins are reaching everyday customers rather than remaining confined to institutional payments.
SoFi launches yield-bearing digital dollars
SoFi launched SoFi Earn (SOFIE), a bank-issued tokenized deposit for consumers paying 4.40% APY.
Consumers can hold interest-bearing digital dollars as an alternative to non-yielding digital money.
OCC completes stablecoin rule
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency finalized a rule implementing the GENIUS Act, becoming the first of several federal agencies to complete regulations under the stablecoin law.
Stablecoin issuers and their financial partners now have a completed piece of the federal regulatory framework to assess.
Cloud outage disrupts Revolut
A Google Cloud outage disrupted Revolut’s app, card payments and money transfers worldwide, with services subsequently beginning to recover. Google restored its London-region services, attributed the disruption to a power event at a third-party facility and plans to publish an incident report; full recovery of every affected bank’s services was not confirmed.
A failure at a cloud facility interrupted customers’ access to both their accounts and everyday payments.
Oct 20–21 · teiss · Technology Org · Latest news from Azerbaijan
JPM Coin expands to Ethereum
JPMorgan is bringing JPM Coin, its token representing dollar deposits, to the Ethereum layer 1 network to serve a wider range of institutional clients.
Institutional customers gain another blockchain network for accessing tokenized bank deposits.
Mesh connects crypto to Visa acceptance
Mesh announced a strategic partnership with Visa to make crypto and stablecoin balances spendable across Visa’s global acceptance network.
Crypto holders could use existing merchant acceptance infrastructure for everyday purchases.
Oct 19 · Finextra
AI agents enter invoice payments
Visa, BILL and Billtrust launched a live pilot allowing trusted AI agents to initiate and complete approved buyer invoice payments through supplier portals. Visa also announced enhanced supplier-spend analytics and virtual-card fraud prevention capabilities.
The pilot tests agents executing commercial payments across buyer and supplier systems, rather than only preparing transactions.
Oct 20–21 · Visa - News · Visa - News · Finextra
France advances stablecoin tax change
France’s parliament approved an amendment removing tax deferral for MiCA-compliant stablecoin trades from January 2027 and subjecting them to a 31% capital gains tax. Final enactment was not established.
If enacted, the change would alter the tax cost of stablecoin trading for French users.
Oct 20 · CoinDesk
LSEG agrees $3.535 billion credit-data deal
London Stock Exchange Group agreed to acquire Octus for $3.535 billion in cash from Permira-advised funds and management. The deal adds private, illiquid and distressed credit data to LSEG’s fixed-income business.
LSEG’s customers would gain a broader data offering for credit valuation, lending and risk decisions.
Oct 23 · Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News
American Express plans workforce cuts
American Express plans to cut 4.5% of its employees. CEO Stephen Squeri said the company aims to become more agile and efficient as it adjusts to greater use of artificial intelligence.
Greater AI use is accompanying planned job losses at a major card company.
Oct 23 · Payments Dive - Latest News
Also this week
Merchant payments
Revolut launched Register, a point-of-sale product featuring facial-recognition payments. The Paypers
Square migrated its American Express-network business credit card to Marqeta, consolidating its credit and debit programs on the issuing platform. Finextra · News Archives | PYMNTS.com
Fiserv made Commerce Hub globally available after its beta phase, giving enterprise merchants a single connection to its payments services. Digital Transactions
Same Day ACH volume rose about 37% year over year to 470.4 million payments in the third quarter, while payment value increased about 32%. News Archives | PYMNTS.com
Mastercard opened early access to Agent Pay for Machines, connecting the x402 payment-request protocol with its network so autonomous AI agents can purchase digital services. Finextra · News Archives | PYMNTS.com
Checkout.com announced plans to enter in-person payments through a partnership using Mollie’s payment terminals and point-of-sale software. Finovate
Affirm secured an exclusive, multiyear Sam’s Club partnership, with SamsClub.com availability planned in the coming weeks and physical-location availability in 2027. Finextra
TEG’s SmartPay platform moved £478 million into UK freight carriers’ accounts, including £418 million in the last 12 months. The Fintech Times
Cross-border payments
Bank Negara Malaysia and the Bank of Thailand joined Singapore’s BLOOM initiative to work on common approaches to accepting, exchanging and settling digital money across borders. Finextra · Fintech Singapore
LianLian Global enabled its social commerce, marketplace and eCommerce clients to send payouts to PayPal accounts globally and Venmo accounts in the United States through PayPal Payouts. News Archives | PYMNTS.com
DBS PayLah! expanded QR payments to more than 250,000 Taiwan merchants, covering approximately two-thirds of the TWQR merchant network, with full participating-network acceptance expected in 2027. Fintech Singapore
TerraPay is integrating TerraPay Verify into Kinexys Liink’s Confirm application to let financial institutions check bank-account and digital-wallet details before international transfers. Fintech Singapore
Etisalat money partnered with Visa Direct to expand personal remittances and small-business international payments from the UAE. Fintech News UAE
Digital assets
Fireblocks launched Liquidity Market for payments companies to compare OTC quotes and execute trades, with MoneyGram, OpenPayd, Reap, TapTapSend and Zepz joining. Fintech Singapore
Standard Chartered signed definitive agreements to acquire Zodia Custody and integrate its regulated custody operations, while Zodia’s software and professional services business will transfer to a separate company. Finextra · Fintech Singapore
Solana activated a new voting system targeting settlement in about 150 milliseconds while allowing users to retain their existing wallets. CoinDesk
Six more companies, including Wells Fargo, Cisco and Marvell, objected to tokenized versions of their shares being listed on OKXICE, bringing the total to 22. CoinDesk
Two subscriptions added $150 million in Franklin Templeton fund shares to XRP Ledger, nearly quadrupling the fund’s tokens on the network, with both going to one wallet whose authorized signers overlap with the issuer’s. CoinDesk
Gibraltar signed a memorandum of understanding with ADI Foundation to explore a sterling, dollar and euro stablecoin consortium using ADI Chain for institutional cross-border settlement. The Fintech Times
Morpho appointed Brian Foster as head of go-to-market as deposits reached $17 billion; Foster previously led Coinbase’s BlackRock partnership. The Fintech Times
Banking and oversight
Revolut secured a Gibraltar distributed ledger technology licence for its global crypto unit and resumed accepting new local customers. Olive Press News Spain · TradingView · FinanceFeeds
FIS made its AML Investigations Agent available to all US banks, including nonclients, with design partner Amalgamated Bank deploying the tool developed with support from Anthropic. Fintech Singapore
Ramp applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national trust bank charter. Payments Dive - Latest News
Ireland’s central bank fined Coinbase Ireland $3.6 million over fund safeguarding failures involving directions to 30 customers to use an alternate US bank account as Silvergate approached collapse in 2023. CoinDesk
Sezzle is seeking a US bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency amid new state rules. Payments Dive - Latest News
BSP is in talks with Revolut about a digital banking licence. BusinessWorld Online
Bizcap launched Line of Credit Ultra for UK SMEs, offering up to £500,000 in working capital with interest charged only on funds drawn. The Fintech Times
UK banks faced 10,000 complaints in three months over restrictions on cryptocurrency purchases. CoinDesk
Revolut is building an AI transaction model for 80 million customers. IT Brief UK
Latvia is targeting tokenization rules in the first half of 2027, focusing on commercial property, although an unfinished overdue assessment leaves the timetable uncertain. CoinDesk
Deals and listings
FDUSD issuer First Digital signed a business combination agreement with KOYN to list on Nasdaq at a $250 million valuation, targeting completion in the first half of 2027. The Fintech Times
Cross River parent CRB Group agreed to acquire Accrue to add branded wallets, stored value and loyalty rewards technology, subject to customary conditions. Finextra · News Archives | PYMNTS.com
MNT-Halan shares rose 6.6% in their Egyptian Exchange debut after the company offered 20% of its shares in Egypt’s largest IPO by dollar value since at least 2021. Fintech News UAE
Tech Mahindra acquired Finastra’s Cash Management product suite, comprising Fusion Cash Management, Fusion Virtual Accounts and Fusion Liquidity Management. Finextra
Plus500 is buying broker-dealer Hedge Capital Markets to add SEC-regulated stocks and ETFs and pave the way for a US multi-asset app. The Fintech Times
Funding
Tether led a $15 million Series A for AI-focused payment startup Mural, bringing its total funding to $28 million. CoinDesk
Coast raised $35 million in growth equity led by Thomvest Ventures to expand payment and expense management tools for physical-economy businesses. News Archives | PYMNTS.com
Cognitive Credit secured a $40 million strategic growth investment for US commercial expansion and development of its next generation of corporate-credit data, infrastructure and AI products. News Archives | PYMNTS.com · News Archives | PYMNTS.com
Argentine payments infrastructure company Rebill closed a $5.4 million pre-Series A round, bringing total funding to more than $9 million since its founding in 2020. Finextra
What to watch
Watch for Affirm’s launch on SamsClub.com in the coming weeks, ahead of planned physical-location availability in 2027.
Watch for Google Cloud’s incident report on the London-region outage; publication timing has not been announced.
Watch for completion of First Digital’s Nasdaq business combination with KOYN, targeted for the first half of 2027.
Watch whether Latvia completes its overdue assessment and delivers tokenization rules in the first half of 2027.
How this was made: Waper follows this topic across 20 sources every day. This week had 53 stories; the most important are picked out, each with links to the original reporting. How we pick sources and stories