In October's roundup of top banking news: Navy Federal's contract with the Department of Defense remains in limbo, check fraud takes a bite out of Regions Financial's third-quarter earnings, a Community Reinvestment Act rule gets finalized and more.

By purchasing the merchant acquirer Atlantic-Pacific Processing Systems, the fintech Stax has rounded out its offerings in a way that echoes the structure of larger payment companies.

CEO Scott Sanborn said it's unclear when demand from banks to buy the fintech's loans will return.

Javice, accused of defrauding JPMorgan Chase in its $175 million acquisition of her college-loan-planning site, says the bank was not sticking to a court order requiring it to pay for her legal defense.

The fintech Greenlight Financial has formed a CUSO to expand access to its family banking app and educational resources after strong interest from credit unions.

American Banker's latest innovation report found that strategic corporate transactions are important for most banks but offer distinctive challenges. Fintech acquisitions give banks maximum control but can be hard to integrate if the buyers don't approach the process thoughtfully.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's proposal would give consumers a legal right to grant third parties access to financial data for a specific use, but firms cannot sell the data or use it for their own benefit — including by feeding it into algorithms or artificial intelligence.

Billy Beale joined the small Virginia bank in May, several months after its fintech partnership strategy landed it in hot water with regulators. "There's still a lot of just blocking and tackling that we've got to do to get the bank to work the way it's supposed to," he says.

The recent round of terminations comes after the neobank cut 225 employees in January.

Tradeshift Holdings has dismissed its co-founder Christian Lanng due to "serious allegations of sexual assault and harassment" and "gross misconduct on multiple grounds," the company says. Lanng denies the allegations.

Goldman is offloading the lending platform less than two years after acquiring it as part of a broader retreat from the mass market.

The company now has 35 million users worldwide and launched new features this summer that include automated investing and expanded account access for non-citizens living in the U.S. But the features come amid controversies at the fintech.

Blue Ridge Bank in Virginia changed course after its rapid growth in the fintech partnership business landed it in hot water. But the path back to a traditional community banking model is also proving to be bumpy.

Regulatory scrutiny of bank-fintech partnerships has steadily increased, putting more pressure on companies like Synapse.

Chubb's Banks and the Digital Wallet Race: The Embedded Insurance Strategy looks to gauge how fintechs and banks view embedded insurance.

Camino Financial and Fundation, which are combining, serve distinct slices of the small business market. The deal's architects say it will enable the combined firm to provide more financing options to entrepreneurs, and they argue that now is a good time to lean into small business lending.

During Hunger Action Month, firms in the payments and fintech space should consider the many ways they can leverage their products to improve Americans' access to healthy foods.

A London-based fintech owner accused of helping drug traffickers launder hundreds of millions of euros through a crypto exchange platform must be extradited to Belgium to face criminal charges, a London judge ruled.

The top three fintech investors in the ranking have 76 combined VC investments as of June 2023.