US Bank partnered with a startup called Supernatural AI that can create AI avatars of key target customers and shave months off the strategic development cycle. “We’re able to get to the answers we need way more quickly than we could through a typical human process only,” CMO Michael Lacorazza said. Supernatural created five different audiences profiles for us based on what we were going after demographically and psychographically. They used multiple third-party data sources to assemble the audiences and then trained them using different models so we could activate against them. You can ask these audiences the same sort of questions as you’d ask humans and get responses back, but you’re doing it through a large-language model chat engine. Say we have a synthetic audience of young, affluent, college-educated people in the first one-third of their career. Maybe they’ve also formed a household and they’re financially stable. We could ask them questions about what’s important to them in their banking relationship, what type of products they’re looking for and what sort of financial decisions they need help with. It was very important to us at first to see if we could validate what we were being told because, you know, these insights are being generated by a machine. So we did some tests with humans and the themes came back with a 90% to 95% overlap with the synthetic audiences. Going forward, we’ll continue to validate, especially as models change and evolve, but we have a lot of confidence in what we’re doing. And, at the end of the day, humans are making the final decisions on all of the work we do. We always apply our own judgment.
SoFi returns to offering crypto investing and also anticipates expanding into stablecoins and other types of digital assets
SoFi Technologies is returning to crypto investing after a two-year hiatus — and the digital bank is also launching cross-border remittance payments in its app as it expands its “one-stop shop” strategy for digital financial services. The digital bank announced on Wednesday that its customers will be able to buy, sell and hold popular cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum through SoFi’s website and mobile app. SoFi also anticipates expanding into stablecoins and other types of digital assets. SoFi, which originally started as an online student loan refinancer and has since expanded into a wide range of digital banking products and services, will be officially releasing both its crypto and remittance services later this year for its customers. An exact timeline or release date was not announced by the company. “The future of financial services is being completely reinvented through innovations in crypto, digital assets and blockchain more broadly,” said SoFi CEO Anthony Noto in a statement. “We’re accelerating our efforts to give members more choice and more control, whether they’re investing, sending money across borders, or planning for their future. Crypto and blockchain innovations can and will be threaded through each of our businesses and capabilities, including buying, paying, saving, investing, borrowing and protecting.” Remittance payments — transactions sent to a foreign country when the sender is located in the U.S. — are a chunk of the global money movement economy that the United States contributes significantly to. The U.S. sent more than $188 billion in remittances abroad in 2021, according to the World Bank. All told, $478 billion in remittances were sent worldwide that year. Remittance payments processing in the U.S. could be subject to the 3.5% remittance tax in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill if that portion of the bill passes in its current form. SoFi declined a request for comment, but the company’s announcement did state that customers would have “full transparency on exchange rates and fees upfront” for remittance payments within the SoFi app.
Wells Fargo hires Muir Paterson from Citi to lead activism defense practice to help clients facing pressure from activist investors
Wells Fargo has hired a senior banker from Citigroup to lead its activism defense practice, as corporations scramble to build out business units to help clients facing pressure from activist investors. The bank is bringing on Muir Paterson as a managing director and head of shareholder advisory and defense from Citigroup where he was a managing director and global head of shareholder advisory and defense. He will report to Jeff Hogan, Wells’ head of global mergers and acquisitions. The hire dovetails with Wells’ goal of building out its investment banking division. Wells has been looking for a senior banker to head its activism defense practice for months. The move also comes just weeks after Jefferies hired veteran Lazard banker Rich Thomas as its new global head of activism defense and JPMorgan Chase in April hired two veteran bankers, Duncan Herrington and Lyndon Park, in its global shareholder engagement and M&A capital markets group. Paterson will join Wells after a period of garden leave and work in New York. Before joining Citi in 2017, Paterson worked for Goldman Sachs, Wellington Management and proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services. At Citi he helped advise Mercury Systems when Jana Partners and Starboard Value pushed for changes and Berry Global Group in its engagement with Ancora Holdings. Wells has been busy in building out its M&A business and recently hired two senior bankers from Goldman Sachs, Chris DiOrio and Kieran Ryan, to head industrials M&A and head sponsors M&A respectively.
ABA unveils new tool to fight Treasury check fraud by creating a centralized point of access to the U.S. Treasury Department’s existing Treasury Check Verification System (TCVS)
The American Bankers Association on Wednesday launched a new online platform to help member banks more easily verify government checks and their payee information. The service creates a centralized point of access to the U.S. Treasury Department’s existing Treasury Check Verification System (TCVS). The new ABA-supported service arrives as financial institutions grapple with increasing check fraud. Treasury checks are 16 times more likely to be reported lost or stolen, returned undeliverable or altered compared to electronic funds transfer, according to the White House. The ABA designed this new tool to help member banks directly combat this elevated risk. “We’re excited to offer this new tool in the banking industry’s ongoing fight against fraud, and we appreciate the Treasury Department’s support for this new platform,” said Rob Nichols, ABA President and CEO. “Banks accessing the TCVS through ABA will be able to spot potentially fraudulent government checks in real-time, which will help protect taxpayers, banks and the federal government from millions in fraud losses.” The new ABA platform offers a key enhancement: the ability to confirm payee name, a feature not available through the U.S. Treasury’s public-facing TCVS page. Banks traditionally accessed payee name validation only through the U.S. Fiscal Service’s secure TCVS API, which requires financial institutions to build a direct connection and integrate it into their systems, a process that can take months. The ABA’s new platform bypasses this complex direct API integration, offering payee validation without the need for banks to develop their own API integrations.
Mastercard said it is expanding its First Party Trust program to tackle “friendly” fraud- genuine transactions that are challenged by cardholders, to assist businesses in researching and addressing claims
Mastercard said it is expanding its First Party Trust program to tackle “friendly” fraud. Also known as first-party fraud, the term refers to genuine transactions that are challenged by cardholders, whether it’s deliberately or happens by mistake. eCommerce has revolutionized the transaction experience while also increasing the need for transparency of payments for merchants, small business owners and entrepreneurs. It is now easier than ever for a customer to dispute a debit or credit card transaction they don’t recognize. The card issuer must then determine whether to provide that cardholder with a refund for the transaction amount — this is known as a chargeback. The global cost of chargebacks to merchants is projected to rise to $42 billion by 2028, with almost half of those transactions being reported as fraudulent. To help deal with this issue, Mastercard says it is expanding its First-Party Trust program, introduced in 2023, to Canada, Latin America, the Caribbean and across the Asia Pacific region. The program assists businesses both big and small with burdensome time and resource-intensive issues, such as researching and addressing claims. It provides enhanced data-sharing, either at the time of transaction or at the time a dispute is raised. Issuers can better identify third-party fraud, where someone’s details are used without consent, from first-party fraud and gain reliable information to resolve cardholder disputes.
Antier has introduced Stablecoin Remittance-as-a-Service (RaaS) embedded within its crypto neo-banking platform bypassing SWIFT
Antier, a leading provider of Web3 financial infrastructure, has introduced the world’s first Stablecoin Remittance-as-a-Service (RaaS) embedded within its crypto neo-banking platform. This innovative solution aims to revolutionize traditional remittance by enabling real-time, blockchain-based settlements that bypass the conventional SWIFT system. The system is expected to reduce cross-border transaction costs by up to 80% and achieve settlement finality in less than a minute. The RaaS solution is deeply embedded within Antier’s Blockchain Neo-Banking suite, bridging blockchain speed and efficiency with regulatory rigor and trust. The platform is designed to ensure predictability, speed, and regulatory compliance in a globalized financial environment. Antier’s integrated stablecoin remittance stack includes features like fiat-to-stablecoin on-ramp compatibility, sub-60-second global stablecoin settlements, smart contract-based payout orchestration, and a stablecoin-agnostic architecture. The company is also working on a next-gen Web3 Super-App to unify digital finance, aiming to simplify blockchain protocols and support real-time treasury operations and cross-border financial innovation.
Quinn’s platform seamlessly embeds within financial platforms via API and enables advisors to deliver personalized, bespoke advice at scale in real-time, onboarding clients in under 12 minutes and generating financial plans in 30 seconds
Quinn has emerged from stealth and raised $11 million in Seed funding led by Viola Fintech with participation of existing investors, to transform how financial institutions deliver personalized wealth advice at scale. Traditional financial advisory models are constrained by a 1:100 advisor-to-client ratio, leaving millions underserved. Quinn breaks that barrier by leveraging advanced AI to substantially grow the market that has access to financial planning and advice. The platform seamlessly embeds within financial platforms, offering real-time and bespoke advice to every client, democratizing access to financial guidance. Quinn’s platform is available as an embedded, co-branded or fully white-labeled experience, allowing for seamless API integration with existing systems, enabling rapid deployment and immediate client impact. Key platform capabilities include: Advisor-Level Onboarding in Under 12 Minutes – Clients complete comprehensive financial assessments with unprecedented speed and ease. Instant Financial Plans in 30 Seconds – AI-generated financial plans empower users with actionable insights instantly. Boosted Upsell and Cross-sell Performance – Recommendations delivered in the context of a financial plan drive higher engagement with premium products and services. Scalable Advisor Productivity – By automating core advisory tasks, Quinn enables Certified Financial Planners® (CFP® Professionals) to serve significantly more clients without increasing headcount, freeing them to focus on high-value, human interactions.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are ordered by FHFA to consider crypto as asset for for single-family mortgage loan risk assessments
U.S. Federal Housing FHFA Director William J. Pulte has ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to consider cryptocurrency as an asset for single-family mortgage loan risk assessments. Pulte said he ordered the change because cryptocurrency may offer an opportunity to build wealth outside of the stock and bond markets, cryptocurrency has not typically been considered in the mortgage risk assessment process, and the consideration of additional borrower assets in that process “may enable the Enterprises to assess the full spectrum of asset information available for reserves and to facilitate sustainable homeownership to creditworthy borrowers.” The order directs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to each prepare a proposal for making this change to their single-family mortgage loan risk assessments, consider only cryptocurrency assets that are stored on a U.S.-regulated centralized exchange, and consider additional risk mitigators. “Prior to implementing any changes, each Enterprise must submit and receive approval from its Board of Directors prior to submitting to U.S. Federal Housing FHFA for review,” the order said. Pulte said that his department would review whether crypto holdings should affect Americans’ mortgage applications.
Digital Asset’s public, permissionless DeFi platform is built from the ground up on Layer-1 blockchain to enable integration of real world assets (RWAs) and allows institutions to tailor privacy settings to their specific needs
Digital Asset has raised $135 million in its strategic funding round. This funding accelerates institutional and decentralized finance adoption on the Canton Network, the only public, permissionless Layer-1 blockchain that offers configurable privacy and institutional-grade compliance at scale. The capital will rapidly expand the integration of hundreds of billions of real-world assets (RWAs) onto Canton, building upon its already substantial deployment of diverse asset classes, including bonds, money market funds, alternative funds, commodities, repurchase agreements (repos), mortgages, life insurance, and annuities. The raise also deepens the relationship with several firms already part of the Canton Network and its Global Synchronizer Foundation, including, BNP Paribas, DRW, Goldman Sachs, Liberty City Ventures, QCP, and Tradeweb, all of whom have played various roles in either the testing, governance, infrastructure, or app development on the Network since its inception. This funding highlights the market’s recognition of Digital Asset’s vision and the pioneering design of the Canton Network, the only network built from the ground up with configurable on-chain privacy. By allowing institutions to tailor privacy settings to their specific needs, Canton overcomes the primary barrier to blockchain adoption: the conflict between transparency and financial confidentiality. As the first comprehensive solution of its kind, Canton bridges the gap between blockchain innovation and real-world financial compliance.
Google announced its open-source Gemini-CLI that brings natural language command execution directly to developer terminal and offering extensibility architecture, built around the emerging MCP standard
Google announced its open-source Gemini-CLI that brings natural language command execution directly to developer terminals. Beyond natural language, it brings the power of Google’s Gemini Pro 2.5 — and it does it mostly for free. The free tier provides 60 model requests per minute and 1,000 requests per day at no charge, limits that Google deliberately set above typical developer usage patterns. The tool is open source under the Apache 2.0 license. While Gemini CLI is mostly free, OpenAI and Anthropic’s tools are not. Google senior staff software engineer Taylor Mullen noted that many users will not use OpenAI Codex or Claude code for just any task, as it carries a cost. Another key differentiator for Gemini CLI lies in its extensibility architecture, built around the emerging Model Context Protocol (MCP) standard. This approach lets developers connect external services and add new capabilities and positions the tool as a platform rather than a single-purpose application. The extensibility model includes three layers: Built-in MCP server support, bundled extensions that combine MCP servers with configuration files and custom Gemini.md files for project-specific customization. This architecture allows individual developers to tailor their experience while enabling teams to standardize workflows across projects. If an organization wants to run multiple Gemini CLI agents in parallel, or if there are specific policy, governance or data residency requirements, a paid API key comes in. The key could be for access to Google Vertex AI, which provides commercial access to a series of models including, but not limited to, Gemini Pro 2.5. Gemini CLI operates as a local agent with built-in security measures that address common concerns about AI command execution. The system requires explicit user confirmation for each command, with options to “allow once,” “always allow” or deny specific operations. The tool’s security model includes multiple layers of protection. Users can use native macOS Seatbelt support for sandboxing, run the agent in Docker or Podman containers, and route all network traffic through proxies for inspection. The open-source nature under Apache 2.0 licensing allows complete code auditing.