Legal issues and news

A number of fintechs emerged amid the COVID-19 pandemic as a flurry of Paycheck Protection Program loan applications inundated banks. Now, the government is alleging many of them facilitated or committed fraud.

New York's attorney general announces MoneyGram will pay a civil fine to settle a lawsuit over its handling of remittance payments; Swedish buy now/pay later lender Klarna is getting into the telecom business; Truist Financial has hired Charles Alston to lead its new nonprofit hospital, higher education and government banking team; and more in this week's banking news roundup.

From AI to crypto to the fraud fight, the industry is rapidly evolving; these young companies are looking to take advantage.

The scheme used fake bank reps, social engineering and crypto to loot U.S. accounts across borders, according to the agency's Office of Inspector General.

The Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a request for information on a range of payments-related fraud trends in order to develop policy solutions to the rising instances of check fraud.

Buy now/pay later provider Sezzle has filed a lawsuit against Shopify, alleging that the e-commerce giant engaged in antitrust practices by making it difficult for merchants to integrate Sezzle's BNPL offering into their websites.

Opposition is growing to the Trump administration's efforts to roll back fair lending requirements for lenders imposed by Biden-era prosecutors.

The fintech and nonprofit join others, including AARP and the ICBA, in working to raise awareness of the financial risks of Alzheimer's and dementia.

The Federal Reserve Board banned a former relationship banker in Arkansas after he was caught stealing customer funds; Benchmark Federal Credit Union plans to merge with Franklin Mint Federal Credit Union to form a $2.1 billion-asset institution; Robin Vince, CEO of Bank of New York Mellon since 2022, has been elected chairman of the board; and more in this week's banking news roundup.

The House and Senate will need to resolve a slight difference between their versions of the bill before sending it to President Donald Trump for his signature.

A Trump-appointed judge refused to dismiss a settlement between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and a Chicago mortgage lender over lending practices that an appeals court already said violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.

A class action lawsuit against the bank's top executives and its auditor in connection with its 2023 failure was dismissed by a federal judge, who said the court did not have the authority to hear the case.

The Trump administration's plan to fire 90% of the staff at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has raised constitutional questions about whether courts can decide whether a president is taking "care that the Laws be faithfully executed."

Shell companies, stablecoin and a Bahaman bank that took orders from a gang of fraudsters all took part in a scheme that bilked U.S. victims of millions.

When a Chicago bank crashed, delivering a major blow to the Deposit Insurance Fund, regulators said they suspected fraud. Historically, that's a common story.

A new executive order reverses digital ID initiatives, fraud alerts and federal data-sharing plans from which banks stood to benefit.

Congressional Democrats offered a bill Friday requiring the Treasury Department to apply the anti-money-laundering requirements of the Corporate Transparency Act more fully and help educate small businesses on how to comply with reporting of beneficial ownership information.

The government should allow and encourage financial institutions to deploy advanced technologies to protect customers from fraud enabled by agentic AI, instead of punishing them for innovating in response to new threats.

Two bankers detailed how artificial intelligence is transforming fraud detection and incident response for their institutions. The technology lets analysts ask datasets direct questions.

The STATES 2.0 Act, currently pending in Congress, would go a long way toward giving banks confidence that they can provide services to legal cannabis businesses without putting themselves in legal jeopardy.