Walmart and Crypto Players Push for Bank Charters Amid Regulatory Shift

Walmart and Crypto Players Push for Bank Charters Amid Regulatory Shift
Walmart and Crypto Players Push for Bank Charters Amid Regulatory Shift

Hey Digital Banking Fanatic!

Walmart is taking a decisive step toward full-service finance, joining crypto firms and FinTech players in a new rush for bank charters.

This comes after the Trump administration signaled openness to bringing more digital-asset activity inside the banking system.

Also, Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse is now seeking approval to form a bank, alongside Coinbase and Wise, as part of a broader push from companies that have long been kept at the edge of regulated banking.

Amazon and Walmart are also exploring services that increasingly resemble traditional banking offerings.

Regulators appear more receptive, but the shift is triggering pushback. Large lobbying groups argue that the wave of national trust charter applications could introduce uneven competition and additional risk.

Ripple, Coinbase, Wise, and Sony Bank are among the twelve applicants this year, the highest level in almost a decade. Industry groups like the Bank Policy Institute and the Independent Community Bankers of America are urging regulators to reject some submissions.

Catch up again tomorrow with more signals from the Digital Banking world. Stay tuned!

Cheers,

Marcel


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NEWS

🇺🇸 Walmart, crypto firms, and FinTechs chase bank charters to offer full‑service financial access. Walmart, Amazon, and major crypto firms are pursuing national trust charters as regulators show new openness to nonbank financial players. Companies like Ripple, Coinbase, and Wise aim to safeguard assets and issue stablecoins, drawing resistance from traditional banks.

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🇦🇪 SIB launches digital payments and card tokenization platform, SIB Pay. One of the key features of SIB Pay is card tokenization, which replaces a user’s debit or credit card information with a randomly-generated token usable only with specific merchants. 

🇦🇷 Banks are prepared to offer crypto services in Argentina. Gabriel Campa, Head of Digital Assets at Towerbank, believes that some companies will develop their crypto solutions directly, while others will seek to form alliances with third parties for this purpose.

🇧🇷 The Central Bank will apply the same risk assessment and control rules to banks and non-banking institutions. This shift is part of the evolution of the supervisory process. It occurs at a time when the regulator has 1,800 authorized institutions. In addition, there will possibly be "100 to 150" applications related to virtual assets. 

🇬🇧 LemFi rolls out savings accounts for UK immigrants. LemFi is moving to expand beyond remittances with new UK savings accounts offering 3.92% interest rates, targeting immigrants who face barriers accessing traditional financial services despite strong financial backgrounds.


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