Comerica Bank will become an early adopter of The Clearing House’s revised rules for domestic On-Behalf-Of (OBO) payments on the RTP® network. Comerica Bank, and its client Monex USA, a leading provider of international payments, corporate FX and currency risk hedging services, took part in one of the first OBO payments under the revised rules, reinforcing Comerica’s dedication to delivering instant payment solutions designed for speed, efficiency and flexibility for both direct and indirect customers. OBO payments are RTP transactions originated by a sender to make a payment for another person (i.e., on behalf of that other person). The sender is the titled owner of the account from which the RTP payment is sent. The new rules replace existing requirements for Payment Service Providers and apply more broadly to intermediated RTP activity, introducing a consistent framework focused on payment transparency, due diligence, risk management and fraud reporting obligations. “Introducing this new capability is a testament to Comerica’s commitment to providing our customers seamless, on demand access to funds, both for themselves and their own customers,” said Allysun Fleming, Comerica Bank Executive Director of Payments. “RTP OBO payments unlock real-time disbursement use cases at scale, such as payroll and benefits, marketplace payouts, embedded payments, and more. We are excited to participate in an ecosystem that enforces transparency of funds.” A comprehensive risk management framework for OBO payments on the RTP network broadens the benefits of RTP payments through enhanced oversight of intermediary payments providers. Through the new requirements, the RTP network strengthens participants’ ability to manage risk for growing payment use cases and will increase momentum for the 24/7 real-time payment network that already processes more than one million transactions per day for more than 950 banks and credit unions. RTP OBO payments for domestic transactions will enable Monex USA to facilitate instant payments at scale, greatly simplifying their operational process and providing enhanced transparency end to end.
Citizens Bank stays with strategy of approaching open banking as an “enterprise” or business project, irrespective of the fate of the 1033 regulation
The Trump administration is doing away with a regulation designed to promote data sharing between banks and third parties. But for Citizens Financial, the move isn’t hindering its bullishness on the broader concept. “This doesn’t change our strategy,” Eric McCabe, Citizens’ head of embedded finance, told. “1033 was focused more on consumers,” McCabe said, adding Citizens has approached open banking as an “enterprise” or business project, combining people from a wide range of departments. That doesn’t directly relate to the 1033 regulation but more about the general market demand for improved data sharing, and how internal collaboration can streamline project management. “Most banks have their own staff for corporate and consumers,” he said. Citizens built its open banking application programming interface to enable clients to have secure and seamless access to their Citizens data from their external platforms of choice, McCabe said. “We then pursued our development in a manner that would comply with 1033, but it wasn’t the driving factor,” McCabe said. The bank has spent more than two years working on its open banking project and has suggested banks continue their own work on open banking and other forms of data sharing. Citizens’ open banking service enables businesses to link their Citizens’ accounts to a third-party platform through an API. Businesses use the API to support permissioned data sharing without using an older practice called screen scraping that has long raised security and privacy concerns among banks. Citizens says its API has reduced screen-scraping usage by more than 90%. “The impetus was to get away from screen scraping. Banks don’t like that. So the APIs give an alternative,” McCabe said. While no one knows exactly what will come next, open banking is here to stay, Kiernan Hines, principal banking analyst at Celent, said in a research note about the uncertainty of the 1033 rule. More than 25% of banks in the U.S. say open banking-led product innovation is one of their three leading technology investment priorities for 2025, according to Celent, though Hines noted that survey was taken before the CFPB’s recent suit. While the CFPB’s recent move to eliminate the 1033 rule will cause the development of open banking to “take a hit,” open banking will continue to grow and has already had a huge impact on financial services, Hines said. “Many financial institutions now view open banking as a genuine opportunity to sit on the other side of the value chain and enhance their own workflows and customer-facing services,” Hines said. “While the rules of the road will continue to evolve, if not formulate, the open-banking toothpaste is out of the tube; customers expect to be able to leverage account data without friction”.
Frontier models are multimodal, capable of zero-shot learning, display agent-like behavior, offer real-time inference and are characterized by massive data sets, compute resources, and sophisticated architectures
You can intuitively apply the word “frontier” to know that these are the biggest and best new systems that companies are pushing. Another way to describe frontier models is as “cutting-edge” AI systems that are broad in purpose, and overall frameworks for improving AI capabilities. When asked, ChatGPT gives us three criteria – massive data sets, compute resources, and sophisticated architectures. Here are some key characteristics of frontier models to help you flush out your vision of how these models work: First, there is multimodality, where frontier models are likely to support non-text inputs and outputs – things like image, video or audio. Otherwise, they can see and hear – not just read and write. Another major characteristic is zero-shot learning, where the system is more capable with less prompting. And then there’s that agent-like behavior that has people talking about the era of “agentic AI.” If you want to play “name that model” and get specific about what companies are moving this research forward, you could say that GPT 4o from OpenAI represents one such frontier model, with multi-modality and real-time inference. Or you could tout the capabilities of Gemini 1.5, which is also multimodal, with decent context. A team of experts analyzed what it takes to work in this part of the AI space and create these frontier models. The panel moderator, Peter Grabowski, introduced two related concepts for frontier models – quality versus sufficiency, and multimodality. Douwe Kiela, CEO of Contextual AI, pointed out that frontier models need a lot of resources, noting that “AI is a very resource-intensive endeavor.” “I see the cost versus quality as the frontier, and the models that actually just need to be trained on specific data, but actually the robustness of the model is there,” said Lisa Dolan, managing director of Link Ventures.
New data observability solutions are addressing the full lifecycle of AI/ML inputs as 42% of enterprises still don’t trust AI model outputs
Ataccama’s new report in partnership with BARC finds that while 58% of organizations have implemented or optimized data observability programs – systems that monitor detect, and resolve data quality and pipeline issues in real-time – 42% still say they do not trust the outputs of their AI/ML models. The findings reflect a critical shift. Adoption is no longer a barrier. Most organizations have tools in place to monitor pipelines and enforce data policies. But trust in AI remains elusive. While 85% of organizations trust their BI dashboards, only 58% say the same for their AI/ML model outputs. The gap is widening as models rely increasingly on unstructured data and inputs that traditional observability tools were never designed to monitor or validate. 51% of respondents cite skills gaps as a primary barrier to observability maturity, followed by budget constraints and lack of cross-functional alignment. But leading teams are pushing it further, embedding observability into designing, delivering, and maintaining data across domains. When observability is deeply connected to automated data quality, teams gain more than visibility: they gain confidence that the data powering their models can be trusted. The report also underscores how unstructured data is reshaping observability strategies. Kevin Petrie, Vice President at BARC said “We’re seeing a shift: leading enterprises aren’t just monitoring data; they’re addressing the full lifecycle of AI/ML inputs. That means automating quality checks, embedding governance controls into data pipelines, and adapting their processes to observe dynamic unstructured objects. This report shows that observability is evolving from a niche practice into a mainstream requirement for Responsible AI.”
Early Warning is partnering with Fiserv to expand Apple Pay rival Paze wallet nationwide, beyond the immediate distribution channels provided by its seven owner banks
Early Warnings Services wants a quick route to expand its Apple Pay rival Paze digital wallet by turning to the financial technology industry’s massive distribution networks. Early Warning, which operates the popular Zelle transfer app and the newer Paze digital waller, said this afternoon that it is partnering with bank technology company Fiserv to expand Paze wallet beyond the immediate distribution channels provided by its seven owner banks. Bank of America, Capital One, JPMorganChase, PNC, Truist, US Bank and Wells Fargo own Early Warning. “To get to scale and to get to 100% [market penetration] we have to expand outside of our owner footprint from a merchant services standpoint, and partner with companies that support merchants,” Eric Hoffman, Chief Partnerships Officer at Early Warning Services, told. Early Warning is hoping to take a page from the Zelle playbook as it expands beyond its owner-bank ecosystem. The partnership will enable Fiserv’s enterprise and small business clients to offer and accept the Paze digital wallet. Early Warning is currently working with Fiserv to onboard a handful of enterprise merchants before the holiday shopping season, Hoffman said, but acknowledged that many large merchants have long implementation roadmaps that cause the process to take longer than expected. “Paze isn’t going to scale overnight,” he said. “Strategic partnerships with companies like Fiserv [are] a long term project. To get to critical scale, it’s going to take more than 2025.” Early Warning is also looking to roll out Paze on Fiserv’s small business payments platform Clover before the end of the year. “That one is a little bit more straightforward, because they use a hosted pay page, which means that there’s a standardization of the payment types that all merchants accept,” Hoffman said. “Once they add Paze, then that portfolio will be mass enabled to tens of thousands of merchants.” Early Warning’s owner banks make up four of the five largest credit card issuers in the country – all of which are automatically enabled with Paze at issuance. And six out of the seven have merchant acquiring business lines, giving Early Warning a solid base to stand up its own e-commerce wallet. Still, Early Warning hopes to add more issuers to Paze, Hoffman said. “We plan on seeing five additional issuers from Fiserv supporting Paze this year.” Solving for merchant acceptance is a “necessary step” for widespread adoption of any new payment method, said Aaron Press, a senior research analyst at IDC. “The way they’re going to solve for the acceptance side is to make it available within the checkout pages that are controlled by the platforms and the acquirers,” Press told. This is the second such distribution partnership that Paze entered in June. Earlier this month, Early Warning inked a deal with Worldpay to bring its checkout option to Worldpay merchants. Early Warning was also working with GoDaddy in 2023 to help drive e-commerce adoption. But Paze’s new distribution partnerships could be too-little-too-late in a market that is currently being reshaped by agentic payments, said Richard Crone, CEO and founder of Crone Consulting. “Paze is still walking a cow path — this is a non-event without the support of major e-commerce merchants,” Crone told American Banker. “The biggest ecommerce retailers focused on agentic payments — they’re racing to prepare for disintermediation from AI-powered shopping, where checkout is collapsed into intent outside the retailer’s own branded platforms.
JPMorgan sees deposit tokens like JPMD as a more scalable and compliant alternative to stablecoins; plans to pilot JPMD on Coinbase-linked blockchain
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is launching a pilot for JPMD, a token representing dollar deposits, which will be transferred to Coinbase via the public blockchain Base. “It’s the first time that a commercial bank is putting commercial money, a deposit-based product, on a public chain and we are starting with Base,” said Naveen Mallela, global co-head of JPMorgan’s blockchain division, Kinexys. The token, denominated in dollars, will initially be available to institutional clients, with future expansion to other users and currencies pending regulatory approval. JPMorgan sees deposit tokens like JPMD as a more scalable and compliant alternative to stablecoins. “From an institutional standpoint, deposit tokens are a superior alternative to stablecoins,” Mallela said, citing potential advantages such as interest-bearing features and deposit insurance. The initiative supports JPMorgan’s broader blockchain push, building on its Kinexys Digital Payments network, which processes over $2 billion daily. Mallela noted, “We think it is more scalable.” The pilot also enhances Base, Coinbase’s public blockchain built on Ethereum, which has grown rapidly due to low fees and fast transaction speeds. The move reflects easing regulatory stances under the Trump administration and a growing trend among major banks like Santander and Deutsche Bank to explore digital assets.
JPMorganChase chief data officer prioritizes modernizing the group’s data so that it can be published in a way that is consistent and understandable by LLMs
Mark Birkhead, firmwide chief data officer of JPMorganChase, said the bank is focused on a multi-year effort to pull humans out of the cycle for fixing data. In 2024 the bank set up a firmwide chief data and analytics office so that all its data initiatives were under one umbrella, led by Teresa Heitsenrether, chief data and analytics officer. She reports to chairman and chief executive, Jamie Dimon, and is part of the operating committee. Birkhead’s role as chief data officer is to oversee the team that sets the central data strategy for the firm in partnership with the business. Birkhead explained that the bank operates in almost 100 countries and across its consumer businesses, investment banking, asset and wealth management and payments. As a result, more than an exabyte of data moves across the firm in any day in many forms , including structured and unstructured data, voice and video files. An exabyte of data is so large that it has been estimated that all the words ever spoken or written by humans in every language since the beginning of mankind would fit on five exabytes. “Our data strategy centers on how we can best deliver all types of data assets and curate them in a way that is discoverable, highly accurate, and highly governed and controlled,” added Birkhead. “That last part is really critical for us as a bank because our customers count on us to keep their information private.” The group has built many data governance systems to ensure data risks are managed to respect privacy and is now investing in bringing them together into a central platform. A critical focus is modernizing the group’s data so that it can be published in a way that is consistent and understandable by large language models (LLMs) used in artificial intelligence and generative AI models. JPMorgan Chase has created an LLM Suite, which provides employees with access to LLM models. There are currently 200,000 users on LLM Suite, according to Birkhead. He continued that the bank is “particularly excited” about AI agents systems with more reasoning capabilities. Another focus is launching more data products and ensuring they are interchangeable, interoperable, and reusable. The final focus is ensuring that data is available in milliseconds.
The passage of the GENIUS Act in Senate removes a major barrier to entry — legal risk — and adds institutional-grade legitimacy to stablecoins and crypto generally
The U.S. Senate approved the GENIUS Act — landmark stablecoin legislation — with a 68–30 vote, moving it closer to President Trump’s goal of signing it before the August recess. With the GENIUS Act, we’re bringing clarity to a sector that’s been clouded by uncertainty and proving that bipartisan, principled leadership can still deliver real results for the American people,” said U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C. Still, before reaching Trump’s desk, the bill must clear the House, where the August recess begins in around 50 days. But the political theater surrounding what could be the passage of the first-ever crypto framework in the U.S, the global implications for dollar-backed digital currencies and the growing institutional embrace of blockchain infrastructure tell a much larger story about rewriting the architecture of money itself. The momentum behind the GENIUS Act is increasingly being taken as a sign of approval by the broader crypto and traditional financial spaces. The stablecoin issuer Circle, for example, has gone public on the NYSE, while corporate interest in stablecoins is no longer theoretical. Major financial institutions including Bank of America (BofA), Wells Fargo and Citigroup are exploring the launch of a jointly operated stablecoin. JPMorgan announced that it is planning to offer its own stablecoin, JPMD. “Everybody’s jumping into stablecoins right now,” Brett McLain, head of payments and blockchain at Kraken, told. “All the big banks, they’re talking about creating their own; others want to leverage existing ones. Retail giants like Walmart and Amazon are exploring embedded payments powered by stablecoins. And global banks from Société Générale to Banco Santander are experimenting with cross-border liquidity management using on-chain dollar tokens. The passage of the GENIUS Act removes a major barrier to entry — legal risk — and adds institutional-grade legitimacy to what was once a speculative fringe technology.
Klarna offers mobile phone plans in U.S to deliver “a seamlessly integrated mobile experience that bundles premium connectivity with financial tools”
Klarna is the latest financial services provider to enter the mobile market, working with Telecom-as-a-Service platform Gigs to launch a phone plan in a host of major markets, beginning with the US. BNPL giant Klarna is offering its 25 million active users in the US a single plan, including uncapped, unlimited 5G data, talk, and text for $40 a month, with coverage on the AT&T network. Citing research showing that half of Americans believe switching phone plans is too difficult, Klarna says its users can transfer their existing number, or get a new one, and activate their phone plan in a few taps within the Klarna app, without any phone calls, paperwork, or store visits. Premium and international plans will roll out later this year, as well as services in the UK, Germany, and other markets. Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO, Klarna, says: “Klarna has saved consumers time and money, and reduced financial worry for over 20 years. With mobile plans we’re taking that one step further, as we continue to build our neobank offering.” Hermann Frank, CEO, Gigs, adds: “Now, consumers can expect a seamlessly integrated mobile experience that bundles premium connectivity with financial tools, all through the apps they already know and love.” Klarna is following in the footsteps of German neobank N26 and Revolut, who have each dipped a toe into the water with their own phone plans for subscribers.
TD Bank’s automation drive helps it rise up the US league tables in investment grade corporate bond transactions on MarketAxess
TD is winning more Wall Street business trading bonds, and doing it with fewer people. The Canadian bank has built up a computer-driven trading team over the past few years that has helped it rise up the US league tables in investment grade corporate bond transactions on the biggest venue for electronic bond trading, MarketAxess Holdings Inc. The bank rose from 20th in 2021, to 9th last year and 6th so far this year — leapfrogging bigger banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. in total number of trades — and it is now at the top of the tables for municipal bond trading. To do this, it has doubled its automation team in the last four years and poached automation experts from rivals like JPMorgan. But the algorithmic trading has allowed it to shed even more employees from the ranks of old-school voice traders who used to dominate the fixed income world from their phones, according to the co-heads of TD Securities Automated Trading, Marty Mannion and Matt Schrager. The changes at TD offer a window into the automation that is sweeping the fixed income industry more broadly and making jobs redundant across Wall Street. Last year, 48% of US investment-grade bonds traded electronically, up from 34% in 2021, according to Crisil Coalition Greenwich. Schrager and Mannion declined to offer a specific number of jobs that have been reduced and said that humans continue to be a necessary part of their operation, in part to oversee the computers and in part to handle trades that are large or require the discretion that a phone conversation can offer. But they estimate that more than 90% of transactions will eventually be automated. TD’s efforts to take advantage of this are a central part of the bank’s ambitions to join the big leagues on Wall Street. The push is particularly important for TD because it is trying to recover from one of the worst money-laundering scandals in US banking history, which led to a $3.1 billion fine and a cap on the size of its US retail banking business.