Banking

Two credit unions in San Diego are locked in a bitter fight over a proposed merger; and a community bank in upstate New York fights off a corporate raider.

A rumored executive order that would require banks to verify the citizenship of their account holders would be incredibly burdensome for banks. It would also result in the "debanking" of untold numbers of Americans.

Todd Lane, the CEO of California Coast Credit Union, described an allegation by an executive at San Diego County Credit Union as "categorically inaccurate." The two institutions are locked in a legal fight after their agreement to merge turned contentious.

Lake Shore Bancorp in Western New York has reached a "standstill agreement" with the Stilwell Group, which has promised not to force a merger or sale in the next three years.

Swiss banking giant UBS Group received federal approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to convert its $1.6 trillion-asset UBS Bank USA from a Utah-chartered industrial bank to a national charter.

Financial institutions that delay or fail to take this leap risk losing customers and revenue, said speakers at the inaugural On-Chain Executive Summit.

Piermont Bank hired Dennis Day for a new executive role focused on payments; the American Bankers Association announced the global expansion of its widely used Fraud Contact Directory; MC Bankshares moved one step closer to finalizing its sale to an investor group; and more in this week's banking news roundup.

Some of the country's largest financial institutions are rolling out stablecoins. With the right strategy, community and mid-tier banks can also reap the benefits of the new payment rail.

By welcoming AI-driven vendor platforms into their banks, small and midsize institutions are introducing risks that are poorly understood and potentially interrelated. Boards of directors need to start paying attention.

Trading bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies is fine, but it's a sideshow: Blockchain is the underlying innovation that has the potential to change the way markets operate.

The Oklahoma community bank partnered with two digital asset companies to create a cross-border form of tokenized U.S. dollar deposits.

Grand Rapids-based Independent Bank Corp. has agreed to buy HCB Bancorp for $70.2 million — the buyer's first deal since 2017.

Participate, a loan participation network, has agreed to use tokenized dollars issued by Custodia Bank and Vantage Bank.

Royal Bank of Canada is rolling out AI across its businesses in an effort to become more efficient and generate more revenues. The Toronto-based bank recently created an internal AI accelerator that directly reports to CEO Dave McKay.

The SEC appears to be serious about moving from quarterly reporting to semiannual, but what if technology could provide a path in the other direction?

Two reports out earlier this month come to very different conclusions as to the feasibility of public blockchains for finance; the differences matter for global stablecoin adoption.

Following similar glitches at Lloyds and the London Metal Exchange, a tech outage at UBS has renewed scrutiny on modern banking platforms.

Jurors determined that Aaron Luneke, the former chief financial officer of Bank of the Valley in Nebraska, obtained millions of dollars in loans — including from his own bank — by inflating contractor bills for a new car wash business.

Agentic AI commerce is under development at Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and other large payment organizations, and many of these will hit banks' servers. Are banks ready for the onslaught?

Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott, R-S.C., said Tuesday that he expects the committee to work out a compromise between banks and crypto firms on yield-like rewards — a major sticking point in a market structure bill — by Friday.