A Tale of Two Clarities (TWIF 5/15)

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What is the future of money?

The answer to that question looks to be evolving in very different formats between the US and Europe.

Should digital dollars be offered in a format that makes them easier to use online, that can settle outside of bank hours, that can move between countries without headaches? Or should dollars be tied to a specific bank, only accessible at certain times of day, and invisible while in-transit (and sometimes at rest) so that ledgering is more difficult?

In theory, that would be the question at the heart of the decision to support a regulatory environment for stablecoins in the US.

But the reality is that legislation is more of a turf war than a chart of the future. The Clarity Act passed the Senate Banking Committee by a narrow — but bipartisan — margin this week, setting more clear boundaries of SEC and CFTC jurisdiction, rules for exchanges, brokers, and trading, protections for DeFi developers through safe harbors, and measures against central bank digital currencies.

The banking lobby has fought diligently against the Act, which it views as too permissive of stablecoins, which for many use-cases provide a compelling alternative to traditional bank payments (and deposits.)

Also this week, Christine Lagarde, the President of the ECB, gave a speech at the Banco de España LatAm Economic Forum in Spain this week arguing that stablecoins should not be issued by private actors.

While Lagarde agreed that the underlying technology of stablecoins is transformative, she argued that the solution is building public infrastructure like the Eurosystem's Pontes project.

It seems Europe and the US are ultimately on paths towards two very different visions of the future of money. Fortunately, the Bank of England this week softened its proposed restrictions on stablecoins — which would have limited consumers to hold only £20k in stablecoin balances — after broad pushback.

And that will be a core topic at Stablecon EMEA next week. Come join us and Flutterwave CEO GB Agboola, US Ambassador Joseph Popolo, CEO of CB Payments and Head of Coinbase UK Keith Grose, Visa’s Maike Hornung, Stripe’s Joseph Galante, The Bank of Ghana’s Kwadwo Botwe, and more in Amsterdam for two days of stablecoin discussions.

You can get a preview of the most important topics in stables today — agentic payments, regulatory battles, and financial services M&A — in our latest Q2 State of Stables report, co-produced with Artemis:

Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below.

Have feedback for us? Let us know. Find me at @nikmilanovic, @twifintech, and @ndm

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Fiserv launched agentOS, an agentic AI operating system for banks and credit unions that includes an agent marketplace with partners, built natively across Fiserv's core, payments, and servicing platforms, with OpenAI and AWS as strategic collaborators and broad availability expected by August 2026.

Visa, Zilch, and Thredd launched the Visa Flexible Credential for UK consumers, allowing multiple payment options — including debit, credit, and BNPL — to sit behind a single card, giving Zilch's nearly 6 million customers the ability to choose how they pay at checkout without managing separate cards or credentials.

The Senate Banking Committee advanced the Clarity Act in a 15-9 bipartisan vote, sending the crypto market structure bill to the next stage after a last-minute deal flipped two Democrats — though outstanding issues around ethics guardrails for government officials and law enforcement provisions still need to be resolved before a full Senate floor vote.

J.P. Morgan pledged $80 billion in small business lending over the next decade as part of its American Dream Initiative, aiming to expand its small business client base from 7 million to 10 million as CEO Jamie Dimon warned the American Dream is "slipping out of reach for too many people."

The Trump administration moved to block Illinois's Interchange Fee Prohibition Act through an OCC preemption order, siding with banks and credit card networks against the state law that would have banned swipe fees on the tax and tip portions of purchases.

"The best companies in the world get access to capital markets and relatively cheap payments for their treasuries. If you're a steel manufacturer in Florence, Alabama, making $30 million at 30% margin, you pretty much have QuickBooks and hope." — Tanner Taddeo

Sui announced the Slush Card, a RedotPay-powered credit card that lets users make stablecoin payments and access collateralized DeFi credit lines, compatible with Apple Pay and Google Pay — with a US waitlist open ahead of a full launch later in 2026.

Intuit Credit Karma opened its platform to the roughly 17 million Americans with no credit history for the first time, giving "credit invisible" users access to free tools like Credit Spark, which converts on-time utility and phone bill payments into credit history.

Addepar launched ADX (Addepar Data Exchange), a managed data environment built on Databricks that allows wealth management firms to unify and activate investment data across systems, powering more sophisticated AI workflows across the $9 trillion in assets on its platform.

Heron Finance unveiled an automated pre-IPO investing strategy, giving accredited investors diversified exposure to 50+ unicorn companies with $5B+ valuations — previously accessible almost exclusively to institutional buyers — with a $10,000 minimum.

FinBox launched Atlas, an AI-native lending infrastructure suite that compressed loan processing timelines from the industry norm of three weeks down to 24 hours, replacing manual borrower onboarding, document verification, and credit workflows with agentic AI — with 15+ lenders already onboard.

Payroll provider Rise* launched Yield: Companies and team members can now earn yield on USDC held inside Rise.

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Revolut won more approvals for its UK private bank, targeted at customers with over £500k in assets. Coming up next: leveraged products, private wealth services and managed portfolio solutions.

Klarna reported a strong Q1 2026, with revenue up 44% year-on-year to $1 billion and adjusted operating profit jumping to $68 million from just $3 million a year earlier, as its merchant network surpassed one million partners and active consumers grew 21% to 119 million.

Google teamed up with Affirm and Klarna to offer buy now, pay later options through its AI Mode and Gemini app, making BNPL a native payment option within AI-driven agentic commerce checkout experiences.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia published a report finding that 4.5 million Americans aged 65 and older lived in or near banking deserts, with the number of affected seniors growing 26% since 2019 — particularly in rural and low-income areas where smartphone and broadband access remain limited.

Wise debuted on the Nasdaq under the ticker WSE, adding a US listing to its existing London Stock Exchange presence and reporting $243 billion in cross-border volume for the most recent financial year — a 31% year-on-year increase.

Apex Fintech Solutions partnered with Plaid to streamline brokerage account transfers, combining Plaid's financial data connectivity with Apex's ACATS clearing infrastructure to reduce the manual errors and delays that have long plagued the investment transfer process.

Parker, the well-funded e-commerce fintech startup, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and reportedly shut down, despite having raised over $200 million in total funding and reaching $65 million in revenue.

Payward (parent company of Kraken) accused custody firm Etana and its CEO of orchestrating a Ponzi-like fraud scheme, alleging that over $25 million in customer reserves were misappropriated and funneled into investments that later defaulted.

Lunar co-founder and long-time CEO Ken Villum Klausen stepped down after 11 years leading the Nordic challenger bank, handing the reins to former Saxo Bank executive Søren Kyhl effective June 1.

Coinbase suffered a multi-hour trading outage tied to an AWS cooling failure just days after announcing a 14% workforce reduction of roughly 700 employees, compounding an already bruising week that included a surprise $394 million Q1 loss.