Big problems require big ideas. How about establishing a White House office of fraud and scam prevention? Or closing loopholes so telecoms stop spoof calls and texts? And ensuring social media companies quickly take down impersonation accounts? On this edition of the ABA Fraudcast, we include Paul Benda’s opening statement addressing these challenges and others, as delivered recently to the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. 

The traditional paradigm in banking sector innovation has been one where vendors develop products and banks buy and deploy them. In an era when innovation was expensive — requiring hardware and software development — if makes sense that innovation took place within capital-intensive institutions.

The statement now contains a stronger emphasis on inflation expectations and is now arguably more flexible and applicable to a wider set of economic conditions than earlier versions.

We are entering a new era of financial innovation driven by tokenization. Tokenized money market funds, tokenized real estate and tokenization of real-world assets are rapidly gaining attention. And now there is talk about tokenized deposits.

In the wake of the summer’s Genius Act, many banks and nonbanks have announced new stablecoin initiatives. Another digital asset — tokenized deposits — may meet needs similar to stablecoins, but the two asset types have significantly different features based on their underlying designs. On this episode of the ABA Banking Journal Podcast, ABA experts Brooke Ybarra and Yikai Wang discuss the key differences between stablecoins and tokenized deposits.

Recent research reveals banks with greater AI usage offered lower interest rates and experienced fewer instances of default.

In a joint letter to Senate leaders, the ABA and 52 state bankers associations said they are deeply concerned about a proposed amendment to a must-pass defense spending bill that would eliminate the payment of interest on bank reserves held at the Federal Reserve.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network announced  that it is seeking public input on a proposed survey about the costs of anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism compliance for nonbank financial institutions.

The Small Business Administration has released a form that smaller financial institutions — those with less than $30 billion in assets — can use to demonstrate compliance with a recent order directing lenders to identify past “debanking” actions.

In a comment letter, the ABA joined with the Consumer Bankers Association in urging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau not to limit its authority to supervise nonbanks that pose an immediate risk of harm to consumers.

The Treasury Department has issued a revised application process for the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund that removes climate-focused financing and amends race-based considerations in the determination of funding eligibility.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network announced that it will postpone reporting requirements of the anti-money laundering regulations for the residential real estate transfers rule until March 1, 2026.