The new rules of financial services: 4 strategic shifts that can’t be ignored

The financial services industry has always evolved. But what we’re seeing now is different. This is not another cycle of incremental change. It is a structural reset; one that is redefining how credit unions create value, compete, and earn trust.

Rapid technology advances, budget pressure, industry consolidation, and evolving consumer expectations for digital-first experiences aren’t new trends. But they’re converging faster than most credit unions are moving, and that gap is a real risk to short-term growth and long-term health. 

In SRM’s 2026 Financial Services Outlook Report, we examine how these interconnected forces are shaping strategy, scale, and competitive positioning for credit unions to approach familiar themes with a new sense of urgency and intention.  

Read more at CUInsight.com

Bank Account and Payment Intelligence Spotlight

An Alternative View of Credit Risk

In our latest report, we explore why traditional credit scores alone can’t keep pace with today’s volatile financial landscape. Discover how layering real-time bank account and payment intelligence with conventional scoring uncovers hidden risks and opportunities. Learn how vCredit empowers lenders to segment risk more precisely, reduce defaults, and confidently expand approvals—all while adapting to fast-changing consumer behaviors.

Layering ValidiFI’s risk score with traditional credit scores transforms static views into actionable insights. Real-time bank data uncovers hidden risk and opportunity, revealing what conventional scores miss. Explore our infographic to see how vCredit helps lenders identify safer approvals, optimize portfolios, and move beyond legacy decisioning.

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CFPB Releases 2026 Regulatory Agenda Detailing Planned Rulemakings

by Troutman Pepper Locke

On July 6, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) released its 2026 regulatory agenda, outlining its planned rulemaking initiatives across the pre-rule, proposed rule, and final rule stages. The agenda reflects the Bureau’s continued shift under the current administration toward deregulation, regulatory streamlining, and reconsideration of rules issued under prior leadership.

The CFPB releases regulatory agendas twice a year in voluntary conjunction with a broader initiative led by the Office of Management and Budget to publish a Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions across the federal government. The Bureau’s 2026 regulatory agenda is actually the Fall 2025 agenda, which was delayed, and some of the actions described are no longer current, as explained below.

Pre-rule Stage

The Bureau has three items in the pre-rule stage, two of which are carried over from previous agendas and one that is appearing for the first time:

• Clarifications to Dodd-Frank Act §§ 1031 and 1036: 
• Ability to Repay/Qualified Mortgages: 
• Prepaid Accounts Under Regulation E and Regulation Z (new)

Read more at JD Supra, LLC

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AI and fintech are redefining banking relationships

A new five-part white paper argues community financial institutions must shift their focus from protecting data to strengthening lending, trust and digital capabilities.

The rise of artificial intelligence, financial data aggregation and digital payments is reshaping the competitive landscape for community banks and credit unions, and institutions that continue relying on traditional advantages risk being left behind, according to a new five-part white paper by Tyfone CEO Siva Narendra.

The series contends that financial institutions no longer control the customer relationship in the way they once did. Instead, consumers increasingly rely on third-party technology platforms to organize their finances, receive advice and move money, leaving banks and credit unions vulnerable to becoming little more than repositories for deposits and transactions.

Read more at CUInsight.com

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12 million Americans live in banking deserts. How hidden costs hold them back

In her half-century on earth, Torry Holmesly has been subjected to neglect, violence, eviction and homelessness. So, if you ask her about what life is like in a banking desert, forgive her for looking at you funny.

And yet, Holmesly, 50, is far from a fool. She knows that not having a nearby and trustworthy bank or credit union has cost her — of savings and peace of mind, of her dream of buying a home and, lately, of avoiding a predatory auto loan.

“The banks would come and they go,” says Holmesly, who moved her two daughters to Azle, Texas, in 2009 after a “church lady” met them at a shelter and helped them find a place to stay.

Read more at BANKRATE

Payliance Expands Card Verify with Mastercard Account Name Inquiry (ANI)

Fraud prevention in installment lending continues to evolve, and so does Payliance’s Card Verify service. Building on last year’s integration of Visa Account Name Inquiry (ANI), Payliance is pleased to announce that Card Verify now supports Mastercard Account Name Inquiry (ANI) as well, extending name verification capabilities across two of the most widely used card networks.

What Is Account Name Inquiry (ANI)?

For lenders who may not yet be leveraging this capability, ANI enables them to verify that the name provided by a cardholder at the time of application matches the name on file with their issuing bank. Unlike traditional verification methods such as AVS and CVV, which confirm address and card validity, ANI directly addresses one of the most common vectors for synthetic identity fraud: name misrepresentation.

Through Payliance’s Card Verify service, lenders receive:

Read MORE at Payliance

These are America’s 10 most expensive states for 2026, where inflation is punishing residents

Key Points

• Nationwide, inflation is the highest it has been in three years. In some states, it is especially punishing. 
• CNBC considers Cost of Living among ten categories of competitiveness in the America’s Top States for Business study, now in its 20th year.  
• America’s Most Expensive State in 2026 features the highest housing costs in the nation.

Newly minted Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh sought early on to put to rest concerns that he might be less hawkish than his predecessors on inflation. 

“It’s the most regressive tax that anyone in Washington could come up with,” he said at his Senate confirmation hearing on April 22. “If you were trying to do the most harm to the least well off among us, inflation would be the way to do it.” 

Read more at CNBC

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Starter homes are out of reach for most first-time buyers—except in these affordable states

It’s becoming more and more difficult for aspiring homeowners to break free from renting, but there are still a few states where buying a starter home isn’t out of reach, a new report from LendingTree has found.

A handful of Southern states offer the best opportunity for renters to make the leap to homeownership, including Mississippi, West Virginia, Arkansas, and Alabama, the study found.

A starter home is defined as being a smaller, affordable home—usually around 1,500 square feet or less. In recent years, it’s become increasingly difficult to find starter homes, and prices have risen sharply.

In 2019, the median listing price for a two-bedroom home was around $220,000—which would have required a household income of roughly $49,000 to afford. By 2022, the median listing price for the same property was $325,000, a 48% increase in price.

Read more at NYPost.com

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Three financial trends credit unions need to pay attention to

As we approach the midpoint of the year, with the financial landscape continually evolving, credit unions find themselves at a pivotal moment. Strategic adaptation and proactive innovation are more crucial than ever. To stay ahead, recognizing and responding to emerging trends is key.

Here are the top three trends that credit unions need to pay attention to:

1. The impact of stablecoin regulation

The rise of digital currencies has been a transformative trend. Among these, stablecoins—cryptocurrencies designed to minimize price volatility by being linked to a stable asset, like the US dollar—have emerged as a particularly intriguing aspect due to their potential to streamline transactions and enhance financial inclusivity.

Read more at CUInsight.com

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The Branch Is Back. But It’s Not the Same Branch

Back in March 2020, I watched institution after institution close their lobbies in a matter of days, with drive-throughs becoming the lifeline almost overnight and the trade press running a wave of pieces asking the same question: Is the branch finally dead?

Credit unions alone lost 449 branches in the first year of the pandemic. It took five full years to get them back, and yet the branch isn’t dead. What COVID actually did was compress a decade of change into about 18 months, force a lot of decisions that should have been made years earlier, and expose which institutions actually had a plan for what their branches were supposed to be doing.

What Got Accelerated

None of what happened in those first few months was completely new. Digital account opening went from a pilot nobody had fully launched to a basic requirement almost overnight. ITMs and video tellers that had been stuck in internal debates suddenly had a very clear reason to move forward. Appointment-based scheduling was something most credit unions and community banks had resisted for years (members expected to walk in, and institutions accommodated that), but when it became the only option, members adjusted faster than most people expected.

Read more at The Financial Brand

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Tiny Transactions May Be the Vanguard for Massive Payments Fraud

A $0.99 charge posts to a customer’s debit card at 3:12 a.m. from an unfamiliar merchant. The transaction clears — no alert goes off, no flag gets raised.

Two days later, the same card funds a $4,200 wire to an overseas account.

By the time the bank’s fraud team reviews the case, the money is gone.

Key trend: This pattern repeats across retail banking thousands of times a day. Small, probing, unauthorized transactions — each one individually unremarkable — collectively represent one of the fastest-growing vulnerabilities in consumer financial services.

Read more at The Financial Brand