Wells Fargo & Co. has reduced the number of federal enforcement actions against it on one front, but it still faces three outstanding issues, including its $1.95 trillion asset cap. The bank said that Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) 2018 consent order — stemming from its compliance risk management program — has terminated. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency lifted its consent order for the same issue in February. Wells Fargo Chief Executive Charles Scharf said the bank “is a different and stronger company today” after he took the helm in 2019 to correct its compliance problems. The three major disciplinary actions that remain against Wells Fargo include two from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — one last year for violating regulations against money laundering; and a 2015 action by the OCC for violation of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act to protect consumer information. For the third, Wells Fargo still faces a $1.95 trillion asset cap imposed by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board in 2018. The bank has been working through deeper scrutiny from regulators in the wake of a phony-accounts scandal that arose nearly a decade ago. Gerard Cassidy, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, wrote in a research note that he believes the asset cap could be lifted in the second quarter of 2025 “and possibly real[ly] soon.” He pointed not only to the bank’s brisk progress with regulators so far this year, but also to recent comments by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Meanwhile, Wells Fargo’s critics are urging caution about lifting the asset cap, arguing that the scandal-tarred bank hasn’t demonstrated enough progress. In addition to the asset cap, Wells Fargo is operating under a 2015 agreement with the OCC, which states that the bank violated part of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act that deals with the consolidation and management of bank subsidiaries. Also still in place is a 2024 formal agreement with the OCC involving what the regulator called “deficiencies” in the bank’s anti-money-laundering controls.
Accenture introduces Trusted Agent Huddle enabling seamless agent-to-agent interoperability across multiple partners including Adobe, AWS, Databricks, Google Cloud, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Snowflake and others
Accenture has introduced Trusted Agent Huddle™ to allow first-of-its-kind multi-system agent collaboration across the enterprise. Part of AI Refinery,™ the Trusted Agent Huddle will allow secure and seamless agent-to-agent interoperability across partners including Adobe, AWS, Databricks, Google Cloud, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, Snowflake and Workday. Agents developed by enterprise users will be able to seamlessly work together in a single platform, allowing organizations to select and manage the right agents for specific tasks and business objectives. Lan Guan, chief AI officer of Accenture, said, “With the proliferation of AI agents across the enterprise, trust is the only limit to AI reaching its full potential, and seamless and secure multi-system collaboration between agents will further the impact and promise of what agentic AI can achieve. With the launch of Trusted Agent Huddle, for the first time, companies will be able to connect and orchestrate agents from different enterprise platforms within AI Refinery, enabling boundaryless capability and unprecedented levels of innovation.” With the use of Trusted Agent Huddle to publish and onboard agents into AI Refinery through open standardization protocols, such as Agent2Agent and Model Context Protocol, organizations can transform entire workflows, rather than isolated processes within single domains or systems. Additionally, the Trusted Agent Huddle will leverage a proprietary algorithm to evaluate and align agent performance. This certification process lays the foundation for future development of an agent trust score. Organizations with pre-existing agents based on cloud-hosted models would seamlessly integrate those agents into AI Refinery without impacting functionality, enabling future agents to be built on the platform. Accenture’s agent builder can be used to adapt agents as business requirements change. FedEx is working with Accenture and NVIDIA to explore uses of Trusted Agent Huddle to drive greater resilience. Sriram Krishnasamy, chief transformation officer and chief digital & information officer, FedEx Corporation said, “The Trusted Agent Huddle enables agents from different platforms to collaborate as one team and will help FedEx seamlessly engage and orchestrate information across the supply chain to accelerate innovation.” “With the launch of Trusted Agent Huddle, we’re helping enterprises like FedEx future proof their innovation and AI investments,” said Karthik Narain, group chief executive—Technology and chief technology officer, Accenture. “Collaboration is the competitive differentiation of the future. Companies can best address today’s volatility, while positioning themselves for future innovation and resilience, if they are able to harness AI innovation from across the ecosystem and not be limited to a single agent ecosystem.” Accenture AI Refinery—which is built on NVIDIA AI Enterprise—helps accelerate AI across the SaaS and cloud AI ecosystem. The new Trusted Agent Huddle can be used with the NVIDIA Agent Intelligence toolkit which provides seamless, heterogeneous connectivity between agents, tools and data.
FDX standard APIs adoption hits 114m customer connections , a 50% increase from the comparable figure of 76 million a year ago helping companies to “improve interoperability when they integrate”
FDX has reported that approximately 114 million customer connections are now happening through APIs aligned to the FDX standard, as the use of standardized APIs to enable consumer-permission data sharing continues to grow. The growth in FDX API adoption to 114 million customer connections represents a 50% increase from the comparable figure of 76 million a year ago, while FDX called it “a sizable jump” from the 96 million reported six months ago. “Hitting 114 million customers connections reflects both the scale of FDX’s impact and the power of industry-led collaboration to drive interoperability,” said Kevin Feltes, chief executive officer of FDX. The organization stated that the FDX API standard “is solidly rooted as the leading method in North America for building APIs to enable safe, user-permissioned connections” and said that “industry-led standard-setting and collaboration” is helping companies to “improve interoperability when they integrate”. FDX noted that API adoption continued to grow “amid a shifting regulatory environment”, but pointed to the “work ahead”. According to FDX, “tens of millions of consumers and small businesses in North America are still sharing financial data through methods that require sharing login credentials with third parties and may offer less customer control”.
CrowdStrike’s SIEM solution is first to bring managed threat hunting to third-party data- unifies real-time intelligence and AI-driven automation to deliver expert-led threat hunting across all attack surfaces
CrowdStrike introduced Falcon® Adversary OverWatch Next-Gen SIEM, the first and only solution to bring managed threat hunting to third-party data. This breakthrough innovation extends the visibility of CrowdStrike’s elite threat hunters into unmanaged attack surfaces adversaries have long exploited. By leveraging third-party data ingested by Falcon® Next-Gen SIEM, CrowdStrike delivers 24/7 expert detection beyond endpoints, identity and cloud environments to stop breaches across every attack surface. Powered by the AI-native CrowdStrike Falcon® cybersecurity platform, Falcon Adversary OverWatch uses deep adversary expertise and industry-leading threat intelligence to rapidly uncover evasive threats. Falcon Next-Gen SIEM unifies native and third-party data, real-time intelligence and AI-driven automation to deliver comprehensive visibility, high-fidelity alerts and machine speed response. New innovations include: Expert-Led Threat Hunting Across all Attack Surfaces; UEBA and Case Management for Falcon Next-Gen SIEM; Unified Identity Security and Next-Gen SIEM; CrowdStrike Pulse Services.
Acoru’s gen AI platform tracks account changes and detects mule accounts by leveraging pre-fraud indicators and continuously monitoring and classifying account types over time, to prevent omnichannel authorized fraud
Acoru, a cybersecurity firm, has launched its operations after securing €4 million seed funding in 2023. The company aims to revolutionize fraud prevention in the financial sector by developing a NextGen platform equipped with generative AI, enhanced analytics, and a configurable intelligence network. The platform excels at tracking account changes and detecting mule accounts by leveraging pre-fraud indicators and continuously monitoring and classifying account types over time. Acoru’s platform leverages advanced technology to process both structured and unstructured data, delivering insights through an intuitive, user-friendly interface. The platform’s intuitive interface, easy customization, and effectiveness in identifying pre-fraud signals have driven rapid adoption. Acoru’s founders, Pablo de la Riva Ferrezuelo and David Morán, bring over 20 years of expertise in cybersecurity and fraud prevention. The company plans to use the funding to continue its international expansion.
Google Wallet may let you add a card just by NFC tapping it to your Android phone, instead of scanning or manually entering card information
Google appears to be working on a new feature that would allow users to add a credit card to Google Wallet simply by tapping the card to their phone. The current process of adding a card to Google Wallet typically involves either scanning or manually entering card information, then going through some sort of verification with your bank. It’s not a difficult process, but it’s one that Google seemingly wants to simplify by letting you add a card by tapping it to your phone. Code added to the latest Google Play Services update directly explains a process in which you “hold your card” to the back of your phone, using NFC to add it to Wallet. This new code was apparently found alongside the existing “Add payment method” screen, taking out any doubt that it’s for anything but adding a new payment card to the app. Presumably, users will still need to verify with their banking institution and complete other steps, but this would provide a quick and easy way to end the card information. It’s also a fairly familiar process as some banking apps, the Capital One app as one example, use NFC to interact with physical cards.
Sprive’s tech automates using cash-back offers, discount vouchers and spare cash from everyday shopping towards mortgage overpayments
Fintech startup Sprive is a “mortgage overpayment” platform aimed at the U.K. market that helps users repay their mortgages faster using automation and cash-back rewards. It claims to save users an average of £10,000 each over the lifetime of the mortgage. Sprive said the app works by letting homeowners pay off their mortgage faster through their everyday shopping, by automatically putting spare cash toward overpayments and continuously scanning the market to help customers find better mortgage deals. Users can pay toward their mortgage from a bank account linked to the Sprive app by shopping as they would normally with mainstream U.K. supermarkets. They then use cash-back offers, discount vouchers, and more in order to pay off a mortgage faster. It does this by allowing the user to save money on the interest on the mortgage and shave potentially years off the mortgage term. CEO Jinesh Vohra said Sprive gives lenders a more efficient digital means of being able to acquire new customers. “Every time someone shops or switches mortgages, we make money. Within 15 minutes of shopping, you get money towards your mortgage, and we scan the market every day for better mortgage deals. Every time a customer refinances, we get commission from the mortgage lender.”
Mastercard is partnering crypto exchanges and fintechs to unveil end-to-end acceptance and payments capabilities of stablecoins such as wallet enablement, card issuance and digital commerce
Mastercard is doubling down on stablecoins, unveiling new global end-to-end acceptance and payments capabilities with an integrated 360-degree approach to allow consumers and businesses to use stablecoins as easily as the money in their bank accounts. The company has partnered with a host of crypto natives such as MetaMask, Kraken, Gemini, Bybit, Crypto.com and Binance on wallet enablement and card issuance and acceptance. Now it is working with OKX to launch the OKX Card, providing millions with easy access to their funds. Mastercard is also teaming up with Nuvei and Circle to give merchants the option to receive their payments in stablecoins such as USDC, regardless of how a consumer chooses to pay. It already offers this functionality across Paxos-issued stablecoins. “When it comes to blockchain and digital assets, the benefits for mainstream use cases are clear,” says Jorn Lambert, chief product officer, Mastercard. “To realise its potential, we need to make it as easy for merchants to receive stablecoin payments and for consumers to use them. We believe in the potential of stablecoins to streamline payments and commerce across the value chain.
Future of work: Microsoft’s survey predicts human-plus -agent teams will cause traditional org chart to be replaced by a “work chart”; dynamic, outcome-driven teams would form around goals and projects, not functions
Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index predicts that corporate organizational charts will rapidly change in the coming years, centered on AI agents. The report highlights that AI has gone beyond a simple work assistant to performing work flexibly as a team member in collaboration with human staff. Some companies are already restructuring their organizations to foster greater teamwork between people and AI. The report is based on a survey of 31,000 employees in 31 countries and predicts that most organizations will shift toward becoming frontier companies in the next two to five years, redefining employee roles. Major examples include Bayer, Dow Chemical, and Wells Fargo, which are introducing AI agents into product development, delivery operations, and customer service at more than 4,000 branches. Microsoft sees a new form of leadership called “agent boss” arising, where all employees will have the same mindset as the CEO of an agent-based startup, creating their own agents and delegating and managing tasks. Additionally, Microsoft suggests that organizations previously organized around functions such as finance, marketing, and engineering are likely to be reorganized around goals and projects to be achieved. Other recent surveys have suggested that 92% of IT jobs will be transformed by AI, and 74% of IT pros see AI making their skills obsolete. As the introduction of AI agents spreads, companies will need to adapt their organizational structures accordingly.
Bloomberg’s research reveals Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) can produce unsafe responses; future designs must integrate safety systems that specifically anticipate how retrieved content might interact with model safeguards
According to surprising new research published by Bloomberg, RAG can potentially make large language models (LLMs) unsafe. Bloomberg’s paper, ‘RAG LLMs are Not Safer: A Safety Analysis of Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Large Language Models,’ evaluated 11 popular LLMs including Claude-3.5-Sonnet, Llama-3-8B and GPT-4o. The findings contradict conventional wisdom that RAG inherently makes AI systems safer. The Bloomberg research team discovered that when using RAG, models that typically refuse harmful queries in standard settings often produce unsafe responses. For example, Llama-3-8B’s unsafe responses jumped from 0.3% to 9.2% when RAG was implemented. Alongside the RAG research, Bloomberg released a second paper, ‘Understanding and Mitigating Risks of Generative AI in Financial Services,’ that introduces a specialized AI content risk taxonomy for financial services that addresses domain-specific concerns not covered by general-purpose safety approaches. The research challenges widespread assumptions that retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) enhances AI safety, while demonstrating how existing guardrail systems fail to address domain-specific risks in financial services applications. For enterprises looking to lead the way in AI, Bloomberg’s research mean that RAG implementations require a fundamental rethinking of safety architecture. Leaders must move beyond viewing guardrails and RAG as separate components and instead design integrated safety systems that specifically anticipate how retrieved content might interact with model safeguards. Industry-leading organizations will need to develop domain-specific risk taxonomies tailored to their regulatory environments, shifting from generic AI safety frameworks to those that address specific business concerns.