Daily brief · Tuesday, 27 October 2026
Fed loses swipe fee appeal; OCC stablecoin rule
Regulation & Policy
A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the Federal Reserve's debit card interchange rule does not follow the intent of Congress in setting a limit on swipe fees. The court said the Fed must rewrite the rule to strip out fixed cost considerations. The ruling applies to card-issuing banks and to merchants and networks affected by the cap.
The OCC has finalized a rule under the GENIUS Act, and law firm guidance points national banks and their fintech partners to a January 18, 2027 date. The regulator is also encouraging smaller lenders to develop stablecoin payment services as federal licensing requirements approach. Separately, state regulatory and legislative groups have urged Treasury to extend stablecoin safe harbors to issuers under state regimes.
The National Law Review, CoinDesk, Competitive Enterprise Institute, JD Supra
Senator Elizabeth Warren urged the Fed, OCC and FDIC to restore bank examiner powers. She said policies limiting when examiners can issue warnings and enforcement actions leave banks more exposed to escalating AI and cybersecurity threats.
Crypto & Stablecoins
The Canadian government has begun a 60-day public consultation on draft stablecoin regulations. Non-bank issuers would have to back tokens 1:1 with reserves held at qualified Canadian institutions and settle redemptions within three business days. The draft keeps the ban on yield payments and proposes a 1% cap on redemption fees.
CoinDesk, Finextra, Finextra Research, PYMNTS.com, Bitcoin Foundation, NewsCord
Euronet and Fireblocks are extending their partnership to give financial firms infrastructure to issue stablecoin-funded cards. Separately, research from Payoneer reports almost all large businesses are at least testing stablecoins, as HSBC brings out its own stablecoin.
Banks
Buy now, pay later provider Sezzle has applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national bank charter. The company is seeking the charter to expand its services.
South Africa has withdrawn HSBC's banking licence after 31 years. Separately, Visa and Mastercard have been threatened with a potential £5bn UK lawsuit over fees.
Fintech & Funding
Anthropic filed an S-1 for a proposed IPO on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol ANT, with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley in top banking roles. Share count and price range are not set. Separately, Broadcom arranged a $63 billion deal with Bank of America, Blackstone, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley to finance chip purchases for Anthropic through a new special purpose vehicle.
Revolut has introduced a personal loan product in the UK, stepping up its challenge to high street banks. Nevis, founded by former Revolut executives, raised $70 million in a Series B led by EQT Ventures for a wealth management AI system. CapitalOS raised $21.9 million in Series A funding for its B2B money orchestration layer.
Payments
Mastercard is targeting the creator community through a partnership with Beast Industries, the company founded by MrBeast. Mastercard also announced a tie-up with Tech Mahindra to embed virtual card and payment capabilities in ERP and procurement platforms.
From the regulators
FinCEN issued an alert on potential abuse by the Iranian regime of religious charity networks, relevant to institutions' AML and sanctions monitoring.
Commenters on the SEC's proposed Regulation Crypto Assets raised concerns about insufficient investor protections and questioned the agency's legal authority.
A Bank of England and FCA survey found generative AI now accounts for more than half of AI systems used by UK financial services firms.
The Q3 2026 SAFE survey shows a net 46% of firms reporting higher bank loan interest rates, and bank loan availability fell (net -5%).
The CFPB backed away from requiring employees who previously worked in regional offices to move to Washington.
Chandler King (City) Limited, an independent financial adviser, entered creditors' voluntary liquidation after agreeing a voluntary requirement with the FCA in April.
Also today
Japan is drafting an emergency cybersecurity package and telling banks to review their own policies after a wave of hacks.
The three will explore connecting tokenized money market funds with SBI's yen-pegged stablecoin JPYSC.
Hong Kong stablecoin payments startup RedotPay is reportedly considering a confidential US IPO filing by year-end and a pre-IPO round at a $4B to $5B valuation.
Citigroup has received approval from China's securities regulator to enter the country's securities market.
Wells Fargo has handed Santos sole control of its consumer bank.
New Hampshire-based Strategist Bank received conditional approval from the FDIC and the state of New Hampshire.
DR Bank in Darien, Connecticut, plans to branch out as a national digital lender after building a sponsor banking business.
European regulators are warning about prediction markets, diverging from the US, citing supervision difficulty and consumer harm.
Read from 114 items posted in the last day. Not reachable today: PYMNTS (HTTPError).