Compliance

The Trump administration's cantankerous relationship with China has lasted the president's entire term, often shaking up the payments and financial services landscape. With a new executive order, Trump has announced bans on more than a half dozen software firms — including payment apps affiliated with Tencent and Alibaba/Ant Group.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency terminated a 2015 consent order that required the bank to improve its controls for combating money laundering.

Several government agencies have made deeper moves into crypto oversight, leaving a trail of angry executives and unresolved political questions. And there's still no sign of a central bank digital currency, leaving the U.S. at risk of falling behind other countries in the race to support faster payment processing.

The panel unanimously approved the measure by a notation vote, its second such move in weeks, and the proposal will now be subject to a comment period.

When the Chinese banking authorities finish reshaping Jack Ma’s empire, the only thing he may have left is Alipay — which would still be the world’s most popular mobile and online payments app.

The latest cyberattacks pointing to the Russian government show that U.S. federal agencies and banks still lack a clear, collaborative game plan.

The National Credit Union Administration juggled several challenges this year beyond the pandemic recession, including an inspector general's report about alleged misconduct by two former employees and criticism that board members had lost their old spirit of comity.

Jack Ma’s besieged Ant Group Co. is planning to fold its financial operations into a holding company that could be regulated more like a bank, according to people familiar with the situation, potentially crippling the growth of its most-profitable units.

Fallout from the coronavirus pandemic consumed the industry this year, but other events, including a scandal at the National Credit Union Administration and a credit union under fire for lack of board diversity, also made waves.

With Microsoft, Equifax and others acknowledging that the SolarWinds hack of U.S. government entities had affected their holdings, security teams and vendors have put the holiday aside while continuing around-the-clock surveillance to ensure no financial services or payments networks have been hacked.