Category Archives: payments

Payment Generic Discussions

Augustus Protocol & Emerging Settlement Standards: The Crypto Clearing Bank Arrives

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In May 2026, Augustus (formerly Ivy) received conditional OCC approval to establish the first “AI-era clearing bank” a federally chartered national bank built on a stablecoin-native core designed for 24/7 programmable clearing. The announcement has drawn attention for its ambition: replacing legacy correspondent banking infrastructure with always-on, machine-initiated settlement. But beneath the compelling narrative lies a more nuanced reality about the structure of U.S. financial settlement and the commercial dynamics that govern it.

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Merchant Litigation Settlement – Good News for V/MA

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For anyone who has followed payments industry equities or competitive dynamics over the past two decades, yesterday’s ruling from Judge Brian Cogan felt like a long-exhaled breath. After 21 years of litigation, multiple failed settlement attempts, and a high-profile 2024 rejection, the Visa/Mastercard merchant interchange lawsuit finally has a path forward. Judge Cogan granted preliminary approval of the amended settlement on June 9, 2026 — and on balance, this is good news for the networks, for merchants, and for the broader ecosystem.

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Stablecoin Strategy – Visa and Mastercard Are Taking Very Different Roads

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The two dominant card networks are both committed to stablecoins. Both see digital assets as a meaningful component of their long-term growth story. Both have articulated clear strategies to their investors. But the roads they are taking could not be more different and the implications for how value-added services grow, who captures the upside, and how fast innovation moves are significant.

Mastercard is buying the infrastructure. Visa is building a network and enabling shared investment.

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JPMorgan, Citi and TCH: Tokenized Deposits ON Chain

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Builds on: 101 Update: CBDCs, Stablecoins and Tokenized Deposits | Stablecoins: A New Model of Trust | Stablecoin Scenarios

The WSJ reported yesterday that JPMorgan, Citigroup, and TCH (a consortium of the largest US banks) are planning a shared tokenized deposit system. For anyone who has been following this space, this is not a surprise. It is a confirmation. I’ve been writing about this trajectory for years. The question was never whether banks would adopt blockchain infrastructure. The question was always how and the commercial construct that governs operation. Now we know. 

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Is Know Your Agent (KYA) Really Necessary?

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Is “Know Your Agent” (KYA) Really Necessary? The tale of an Orphan Signal

Short Blog | June 2026

A new category of startup has emerged around “Know Your Agent” (KYA) — the idea that merchants and payment platforms need a framework to verify the identity, authority, and auditability of AI agents acting on behalf of consumers. PYMNTS has covered the space extensively, and KnowYourAgent.xyz is already pitching merchants on “identity, policy controls, and evidence for every AI-agent transaction at checkout.” The framing is intuitive: if a bot is buying something, shouldn’t you know who sent it?

I want to push back — not on the problem, but on whether KYA, as a standalone service category, is the right solution.

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Fedwire for Fintechs – Opportunities

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I want to break down what the May 19, 2026 Executive Order on financial technology actually means for our industry. If you are looking for a basic textbook explanation of Fedwire or the National Settlement Service (NSS), you will not find it here. See my blog Settlement – Core of Banking for how the plumbing works. Today, I’m on what this EO means for Fintechs, with a discussion on the operational constraints likely to occur.

The day after the President signed the executive order, the Federal Reserve Board dropped a formal proposal to establish a special-purpose “Payment Account”. This is a streamlined, payments-only account category designed to bypass the traditional Master Account bottleneck. Under the new framework, the Fed is promising a 90-day review timeline for Tier 2 and Tier 3 non-bank applicants. 

This sounds like a massive win, but as we look at the fine print, the operational reality is a lot more complicated. Here is my breakdown of the core opportunities, the constraints, and the economic hurdles you need to consider.

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Stripe Sessions 2026: Takeaways

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It has taken two weeks, but I’m finally 20% through processing Stripe Sessions 2026 (my first). I’ll say it plainly: I was absolutely blown away by the energy, the talent, the ambition, and frankly, the sheer scale of what Stripe is building. My only real complaint? The rooms needed to be bigger. A lot bigger.

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DPCs Great Idea with a Long Way To Go

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Executive Summary

I’m fortunate to chat with a diversity of large payment network stakeholders. As most of you know, I view the challenge in payments more from a political/incentive viewpoint than a technical one. The alphabet soup of new standards is hard to keep up with, but be assured that each one has a proponent (who benefits) and a group of resistors. Innovation in a network is hard, as existing stakeholders have built assets and competitive positions based upon how things work today. Today’s blog covers DPCs. DPCs may not be the biggest threat, but they are the newest. I’m not going to attempt a deep tech dive into DPCs; my effort is focused more on the challenges faced by any new payment innovation to gain traction and scale. Network effects are hard to beat!

Why read this blog? My readers know I view identity and authentication as part of the core “bundle” of payments, and Visa/MA are the de facto identity infrastructure of the internet because they unlock the power of banks (ie KYC) within a commercial framework with active governance. Today we are breaking down the latest “threat”: Digital Payment Credentials (DPCs) within Agentic(ie Gemini, GPay). The quick summary is that DPCs are an amazing technical innovation without a commercial framework or active governance, and thus will be challenged to operate separately from established networks (just like Stablecoins). This 23 page monster blog is a breakdown of the politics and the tech.

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The CLARITY Act Is Locked — And Stablecoin Payments Just Lost Their Best Argument

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When I wrote Stablecoin Rewards’s Last Hope – The CLARITY Act in February, the Senate was deadlocked, Coinbase had just walked out of the markup, and the White House was scrambling to hold a fragile coalition together. The central question was whether the Alsobrooks Compromise — activity-based rewards in, idle yield out — could survive the banking lobby long enough to reach a floor vote.

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