Fintech · Industry brief

Revolut has secured a French banking licence from France's ACPR regulator and the European Central Bank, allowing it to offer locally tailored products including lending and regulated savings across Western Europe. The fintech is committing $1.1 billion to French expansion and plans to hire over 600 people, with potential migration of customers from Germany, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain to its French entity. This follows Revolut's earlier UK banking licence acquisition and strengthens its eventual push for a U.S. banking licence. Nayax and Zaria have filed applications for U.S. bank charters to gain greater control over financial products and regulated infrastructure, while Dutch fintech Bunq's application for a national bank charter was rejected by U.S. regulators. Additionally, the UK Financial Conduct Authority selected five fintech companies for its Scale-up Unit to support growth and regulatory navigation. Traydstream, a trade finance technology provider, secured investment from Mashreq's NeoVentures after processing over $350 billion in trade.

Circle Internet Group received a limited purpose trust charter from New York DFS for its subsidiary Circle Internet Trust Company LLC on July 31, deepening the regulatory foundation for Circle's USDC stablecoin. This follows Circle's 2015 BitLicense from New York DFS, marking over a decade of regulatory engagement as digital dollars gain prominence in global finance. The Federal Reserve Board issued a proposed rulemaking on July 31 to comprehensively modernize rules governing mutual banking organizations for the first time since 1993, seeking to reduce procedural burdens and increase capital-raising flexibility while preserving their depositor-owned structure. The Federal Reserve and FDIC also jointly proposed modernizing insider lending rules, updating dollar-based thresholds unchanged since 1979 and early decades respectively, with comments due 60 days after Federal Register publication. On August 4, the FDIC launched a new Office of Supervisory Appeals as a standalone final review level for appeals of material supervisory determinations by FDIC-supervised institutions, replacing the prior committee structure and staffing it with three independent reviewing officials. The OCC issued a notice of proposed rulemaking on August 3 requesting comment on structural and substantive changes to its rules governing OCC information disclosure, seeking to better balance confidential supervisory information protection with transparency needs. On July 31, the OCC and FDIC issued a joint notice of proposed rulemaking to amend Community Reinvestment Act rules, retaining core 1995 framework elements while making targeted changes including narrowing retail banking services for CRA credit and exempting banks with $10 billion or less in assets from data collection requirements. The House Financial Services Committee released a discussion draft on July 24 to reform the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau across five titles addressing governance, enforcement authority, innovation support, supervisory frameworks, and reduced reliance on enforcement as policymaking.

FDIC approved deposit insurance for a newly chartered national bank headquartered in Dallas focused on digital asset companies, with preliminary conditional approval granted by the OCC on May 8. Two firms filed national trust bank charter applications with the OCC: a stablecoin infrastructure firm proposing a New York-based entity for digital asset custody and stablecoin issuance, and a company proposing a special purpose national bank for trust services across traditional and digital asset markets. Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (H.R. 3633) on August 8, with a procedural vote scheduled for September 15. Outstanding issues include ethics language, developer protection provisions, the commodities portion, and changes to crypto rewards program provisions sought by banking groups. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig stated the agency has digital asset rule proposals prepared and will proceed with rulemaking regardless of whether the Clarity Act passes, targeting finalization before the current administration ends. SEC enforcement charged the founder of an NFT marketplace with securities and wire fraud for defrauding investors through false statements about fund use and misappropriation. A cryptocurrency market maker founder was sentenced for his role in a market manipulation conspiracy involving wash trading across multiple exchanges. The U.S. District Court for Utah held that the Commodity Exchange Act does not preempt Utah's enforcement of anti-gambling laws against prediction markets exchanges.