• As we move into the first week of May, the alternative financial services sector is seeing a rapid convergence of AI-driven automation and heightened regulatory scrutiny. This week’s edition focuses on the tools and strategies our members are using to navigate this evolving landscape, from specialized payment processing to advanced fraud detection.

Validate consumer and business bank accounts, confirm ownership, detect fraud, and assess risk 

Gen Z Is Redefining Primary Banking Relationships Faster Than Banks Realize

Generation Z is entering its peak financial years with rising income, growing influence, and sharply different expectations of financial institutions. New research from brand experience company Adrenaline shows that while Gen Z is the most digitally immersed generation to date, they actively seek human guidance for complex financial decisions.

This dual expectation — frictionless digital tools paired with authentic personal advice — is reshaping how banks and credit unions must design channels, branches, and brand experiences. At the same time, Gen Z’s low institutional loyalty, high provider fragmentation, and values-driven trust model are redefining traditional growth playbooks.

Read more at The Financial Brand

Bank of America drops stunning take on the economy

The U.S. economy might be stronger than it feels at this point.

According to Seeking Alpha reporting, Bank of America strategist Michael Hartnett argues that the country is caught in a nominal “boom loop.”

At the same time, he predicts U.S. GDP will climb nearly 75% from the pandemic low by 2027.

That’s a powerful move, but it comes with a caveat.

The “boom” isn’t what you might typically expect, with factories ramping up output, wages rising, and consumers flooding in.

Read more at The Street

Have a tax law question?

Our #IRS Interactive Tax Assistant has answers.

Watch this short video to learn more:

https://youtu.be/y6HkaBkdKdU

• The Earned Income Tax Credit or #EITC is a valuable tax credit that can help millions of working people, including foster parents. Get more information from #IRS www.irs.gov/eitc #FosterCareMonth
• Did you know foster parents may qualify for the valuable Earned Income Tax Credit? During #FosterCareMonth, help #IRS spread the word that it’s not too late to claim the #EITC: www.irs.gov/eitc
• Raising a child on a limited income? You may qualify for the #IRS Earned Income Tax Credit or #EITC, even if they’re a foster child, grandchild or another relative: www.irs.gov/eitc #FosterCareMonth
• An #IRS reminder on #FosterCareMonth: If you’re raising a foster child, you may qualify for the valuable Earned Income Tax Credit or #EITC: www.irs.gov/eitc

Jose L. Santiago

Public Affairs Specialist

Tax Outreach, Partnership and Education

Email: jose.l.santiago@irs.gov

The Growth Engine Behind Modern Financial Institutions

Most growth strategies don’t fail in the boardroom. They fail in the gap between decision and deployment.

Leadership teams approve new products, refine positioning, adjust rate strategies, and greenlight campaigns, only to discover that execution moves slower than the market itself. By the time digital experiences are updated, competitor offers have shifted, customer expectations have evolved, and the opportunity has narrowed.

This is not a strategy problem. And it is rarely a talent problem.

Increasingly, it is an architectural constraint. One that remains largely invisible until speed becomes a competitive necessity.

Read more at The Financial Brand

US Consumer Finance Watchdog Narrows Biden-Era Anti-Discrimination Rule on Small Business Lending

NEW YORK, April 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection ⁠Bureau ⁠on Thursday substantially narrowed Biden-era regulations ⁠intended to combat discrimination in lending to small businesses, reducing the number of banks that ​will be required banks to collect data on race and gender data from borrowers, according to a Federal Register notice.

The changes to the ‌rule, which was mandated by Congress ‌following the 2008 financial crisis, mark the Trump administration's latest rollback of regulations intended to help prevent bias against racial and ⁠social minorities.

Under the ⁠new version finalized Thursday, only banks that originate 1,000 or more small business loans ​in each of the prior two years will be required to comply with the anti-discrimination rule, an increase from the prior level of 100 loans. The new rule also removes references to gender identity or the business ownership's LGBTQI+ status.

Read more at REUTERS

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The Power of Payments Is About More Than Fee Income

From the earliest deposit-taking institutions to today’s digital challengers, banking’s defining feature has been that the same institution both safeguards money and moves it, turning stored balances into a medium for everyday payments. That’s an oversimplification, of course (a little lending is part of the story too!) but it points to something important that sometimes gets lost in an increasingly fragmented financial services landscape: payments matter.

The strength of a bank’s relationship with its customers is tied in no small part to the role it plays in how those customers make and receive payments. When that part of the relationship weakens, the broader relationship often does too.

For small businesses, payments are a major part of day-to-day operations: how they get paid, how they manage cash flow, and how they support their own customer relationships. When a small financial institution offers only minimal payment services to its business customers, it gives up one of the key supports of relationship primacy.

Read more at The Financial Brand

Subprime borrowers still accessing mortgages as delinquency rates rise: TransUnion

Recent subprime mortgages are deteriorating faster than pre-pandemic loans

A trend that has been discussed in the US economy is starting to show up in the credit market, and it involves high- and low-credit-score borrowers.

The term “K-shaped” economy has been used to reflect that high-income people are increasingly doing well while low-income people are doing worse, as the two demographics pull apart in a K-shape.

According to new data from TransUnion, this trend is showing up in recent credit reporting, with the highest and lowest credit score groups showing increases over the last three years.

Read more at Mortgage Professional

Reform the Federal Home Loan Banks to finance the housing America needs: BROOKINGS

The United States spends about $6.9 billion annually in implicit federal subsidies on a Depression-era banking cooperative that no longer serves its housing mission. It could more efficiently and effectively use that to directly finance hundreds of thousands of new homes each year.

The Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLB) system, a roughly $1.3 trillion government-sponsored enterprise originally created by President Hoover in the 1930s to support homeownership, now functions primarily as a vehicle for large commercial banks and insurance companies to borrow cheaply in short-term money markets and invest those funds as they like. Meanwhile, the American housing crisis continues to worsen.

We should refocus the FHLB system on fulfilling its historic mission. Specifically, a quarter of FHLB profits should be used to make direct, below-market construction loans to multi-family residential housing.

Read more at The Brookings Institution

Inside the two surprising markets where home affordability is rapidly collapsing

Beyond California, payments have skyrocketed in two markets brokers won’t see coming

Affordability challenges have been a much-discussed topic, not just in the mortgage industry but across the financial landscape.

Those conversations are getting louder this week, as gas prices skyrocket in much of the US. Prices in Great Lakes states are approaching what has been the norm in places like California, with $5 per gallon gasoline showing up in states like Ohio and Michigan.

In the housing market, affordability in metro areas continues to be a problem. Despite a decline in the overall average mortgage payment in a new LendingTree report, 26 of the 100 largest metros saw payments increase.

Read more at Mortgage Professional

E-Complish, LLC Launches: IntellAgent™, a 24/7

AI Companion for Customer Account Management & Payment Processing

Refined Innovation Execution Can Help Banks Regain Ground Lost to Fintechs

The rate of revenue growth in corporate and investment banking is flagging in the face of competition from fintechs and other non-banks. While traditional institutions are attempting to beef up their innovation in products and services in this space, in many cases the reality is falling far short of the intent, including implementation of AI.

Key insight: Both technological and human reasons lay behind stalling AI implementation, according to the inaugural edition of the Capgemini Research Institute’s World Corporate and Investment Banking Report.

This lack of traction comes at a point when 82% of corporate and financial institution customers worldwide told the firm that they prefer to interact with their providers via digital channels whenever possible. More and more clients want bank systems to integrate with their systems. This includes the ability to embed banking functions and services.

Read more at The Financial Brand

Maryland Signs Bills Protecting MD Workers From Payday App Fees

State legislation targets high-cost apps and strengthens community financial services for lasting economic gains.

BALTIMORE — Governor Wes Moore signed legislation Tuesday that delivers new safeguards for Maryland workers seeking early access to their pay and expands financial services for low- and moderate-income families across the state.

The Earned Wage Access bill, SB94, closes regulatory gaps that allowed certain apps to operate like payday lenders while charging users substantial fees. The measure follows a state market inquiry that documented more than $35 million in fees paid by Maryland consumers on 5.5 million transactions between 2019 and 2024.

Read more at Southern Maryland Chronicle

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CFPB Issues Final Section 1071 Rule: Narrower Scope, Later Compliance Date, and a Leaner Data Collection and Reporting Regime

Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) released its final rule revising the 2023 small business lending data collection and reporting rule under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) and Regulation B, which implements Section 1071 of the Dodd-Frank Act (2026 Final Rule). The 2026 Final Rule will become effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register, and the compliance date for initial data collection is January 1, 2028.

In November 2025, we published an analysis of the Bureau’s proposed rule (found here), in which we described a fundamental pivot to a “Phase One” regime focused on core products, higher‑volume lenders, and a leaner set of data collection points, with a single compliance date. The final rule largely adopts that narrowed architecture, while adding important implementation details and a few notable refinements.

Read more at Troutman Pepper Locke

FinTech funding hits $800bn as US firms dominate market

US firms secured almost half of all FinTech deals this week, as global funding reached a solid $800m across 21 transactions.

American companies accounted for eight of the 21 deals, just under 40% of total activity, but captured a disproportionate share of capital, pulling in just over half of all funding raised during the week.

The imbalance highlights the continued concentration of larger cheque sizes in the US market, even as deal activity remains globally distributed.

This trend is in line with recent findings from FinTech Global, which show US firms accounted for roughly 50% of global FinTech deals in Q1 2026, reinforcing the country’s position as the dominant force in the sector.

Read more at Fintech Global

Payliance enables organizations to streamline

payment acceptance, minimize processing costs,

and reduce the risk of fraud.

Nearly half of Americans regret financial decisions due to a lack of understanding, Experian research finds

As Financial Literacy Month comes to a close, new research from Experian highlights a gap in consumers’ understanding of the financial system. According to the research, nearly half (47%) of U.S. adults say they’ve made a financial decision they later regretted because they didn’t fully understand the terms.

The research findings underscore the importance of financial education as consumers navigate an increasingly complex financial environment. While three-quarters of Americans believe financial education helps people make more informed financial decisions, approximately one-in-five expressed lower confidence in their understanding of personal finance. At the same time, nearly half (46%) are worried about covering monthly expenses, while 29% do not believe they could cover an unexpected expense exceeding $1,000.

Read more at EXPERIAN

From speeding loans to transforming the small business customer experience

Key takeaways:

• Dave DeRose is applying his front‑line banking experience and passion for analytics to help U.S. Bank prioritize ideas that deliver the greatest impact for small business customers.
• He helped lead a redesigned small business loan process and digital intake platform that significantly improved speed, convenience and ease of use for customers and bankers.
• In his newest role, DeRose is focused on transforming sales strategy to expand bankers’ capacity and strengthen U.S. Bank’s support of the small business community.

Read more at US Bank

Loved by collection agencies, debt buyers, and lenders handling diverse portfolios. cf

7 ways credit unions are helping members build financial literacy

Financial literacy is one of the most cited priorities in the credit union movement—but what does it actually look like in practice? For some credit unions, it means one-on-one coaching and certified counselors. For others, it means showing up in schools, prisons, and workforce training programs to meet people where they are, often long before they become members.

The examples below are drawn from credit unions across the country. Together, they show the remarkable breadth of ways the movement is putting "people helping people" into action.

1. One-on-one financial coaching backed by certified counselors

The most direct form of financial literacy support is also one of the most impactful: a trained counselor sitting with a member, working through their specific situation, and helping them build a plan that actually sticks.

Read more at AmericasCreditUnion.org

Could Robinhood Be the Most Underrated Fintech Story?

Robinhood is trying to become much more than a trading app, but the stock's valuation still leaves investors with one big question.

Robinhood (HOOD+1.06%) is pushing deeper into banking, guided investing, AI insights, deposits, and everyday money management. That could make the company a more serious threat to traditional brokers, but the stock still has to prove its growth can support a premium valuation.

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Robinhood Markets wasn’t one of them. Generational wealth is rarely built on a single hot stock pick — it’s built on a resilient, diversified foundation designed to compound for decades. If your goal is to pursue true generational wealth, you’ll want to see the 10 stocks our analysts believe are the best to buy now.

Read more at The Motley Fool

Navigating Growth, Risk & Resilience in Credit Cards

Credit card portfolios are under pressure to deliver growth while managing rising risk, tightening margins, and uncertain economic conditions. Traditional strategies are no longer enough.

Financial institutions must rethink how card programs drive performance without overextending capital or increasing exposure. Shifting consumer behavior and regulatory pressure are accelerating the need for change.

This webinar explores how banking leaders can recalibrate credit card strategies to remain competitive, resilient, and aligned with evolving market realities.

This webinar will teach banking executives:

Read more at The Financial Brand

Visa and TikTok Unveil Debit Card for Social Commerce Payouts

Visa and TikTok are launching a new “creator card” aimed at fixing one of the biggest pain points in the creator economy: getting paid on time.

The debit card, initially rolling out in the UK, will allow creators to convert TikTok Live gifts into income and access funds more seamlessly through a dedicated business account.

“The partnership is all about getting creators their funds faster, which for a small business is critical to cash flow and money management,” said Ben Danner, Senior Debit Analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research. “The other upside is to keep business expenses separate from personal expenses, which are often intermingled as creators utilize their personal bank accounts for their TikTok businesses.”

Read more at PAYMENTS JOURNAL

85% of Gen Z avoid financial decisions due to confusing language

85% of Gen Z say they’ve walked away from a financial decision because they were confused by the language, according to new research conducted by Zogo and dcdx. With only 4% of Gen Z as credit union members, this further suggests that it’s not a lack of access, or even a lack of interest. Rather, Gen Z’s financial barriers are rooted in communication, creating friction in moments that should feel straightforward, whether that’s finding a financial institution, opening an account, or taking out a loan.

When you step back and look at it, that friction isn’t happening at the margins. It’s happening right at the point of decision, when someone is already engaged and trying to move forward.

Identifying the points of friction

For Gen Z consumers, financial decisions don’t begin with a lack of options. They are surrounded by countless financial institutions, all competing for their attention and share of wallet.

Read more at CUINSIGHT.COM

Stop Ignoring Imperfect Credit Customers and Start Competing for Them

Steve Min, Chief Credit Officer at Credit One Bank, has spent his career working in credit risk and portfolio strategy at multiple financial institutions. At Credit One, he oversees lending and product decisions for a customer base that largely falls outside traditional prime segments. His approach centers on expanding access to credit while equipping consumers with the knowledge and tools to improve their financial standing over time.

In a recent Banking Transformed podcast episode, Min argues that serving customers with less-than-perfect credit is both a viable business model and an opportunity that many large banks continue to overlook due to risk aversion and outdated assumptions about profitability.

By combining targeted education, real-time digital tools, and a broader spectrum of rewards and credit products, Credit One demonstrates that institutions can grow portfolios while helping customers build stronger financial momentum.

Read more at The Financial Brand

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Why more states are passing laws to help people drive less: BROOKINGS

In recent decades, there’s been a sea change in how governments plan for and invest in roadway infrastructure. During the 20th century highway build-out, transportation practitioners would practically celebrate when people drove more total miles, because they linked that metric (known in transportation circles as “vehicle miles traveled,” or VMT) with economic growth. However, as the connection between higher VMT and economic growth began to fracture, a new generation of practitioners started to recognize that more driving doesn’t necessarily mean more prosperity.

Instead, we now know higher VMT often comes bundled with a host of negative side effects. More driving increases costs of living, as households spend more on gas, car maintenance, and insurance. Governments often pay to increase roadway capacity to accommodate more VMT, but such construction only induces more driving and fails to reduce congestion—all while leaving a bigger long-term maintenance bill. More VMT also leads to higher greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and worse localized air pollution from particulate matter.

Read more at The Brookings Institution

Why Community Banks Are Betting on Legacy Planning

Here is a bank customer I think about all the time: someone sitting at the kitchen table a week after the funeral of a loved one, surrounded by the pieces of a life they’re now responsible for untangling.

A drawer of old statements. A phone they can’t unlock. And (believe it or not) no idea where the will is, or whether one exists at all.

This person is walking into a branch, or calling their bank for guidance, every single day in this country. And in most cases, the bank that was trusted for decades never had a chance to help them prepare for the one transition that was always going to come.

This intersection is precisely where many community banks are looking to as a once-in-a-generation opportunity looms:

Read more at The Financial Brand