Merchant

The 21st century financial system that digital currency promised is being built, but by banks, not by the bitcoin crowd.

The measure, sent Thursday to the governor's desk, would mark the second state ban on interchange fees and could inform an ongoing bank-led legal challenge to a similar Illinois law.

As gas prices surge, small businesses — particularly in agriculture and transportation — have struggled to keep up. For banks, this has brought a combination of short-term benefits and long-term concerns.

Plaintiffs say Team 313 stole Social Security numbers and IDs. Chime says no data left its systems. None of the suits has its own evidence.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a new version of a small-business lending rule that took 17 years to get over the finish line. Banks are still lobbying for the rule to be repealed.

Plaintiffs allege the banks failed to safeguard names, Social Security numbers and account data after a breach at a vendor neither bank has named.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued an interim final rule Friday to clarify banks' leeway to charge interchange fees, explicitly blocking the applicability of a law passed in Illinois that would ban charging interchange fees on taxes and tips that goes into effect in July.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is poised to finalize a contentious rule mandating the collection of demographic data on small-business borrowers, with the aim of ensuring equal access to credit for women and minority owners.

The Charlotte-based bank is hoping to bring request for payment technology into the mainstream. Early Warning sees bill pay as another use case to expand its payment network beyond its peer-to-peer roots.

Both banks deny their networks were breached. Experts say the data likely points to a single vendor that was compromised.