What happens when a stablecoin goes unstable? (TWIF 5/1)

Hello Fintech Friends,

Welcome to the new readers who’ve joined us since last week. You’re joining 170,000+ other subscribers who love fintech.

It’s good to be back!

I’m catching up on 2+ weeks’ worth of fintech news from a short paternity leave over the past couple weeks and…. wow. Fintech never sleeps.

First, a quick announcement: We just released our call for speakers for Stablecon USA, the largest global stablecoin conference, taking place in Washington DC this September!

The inaugural speakers list includes:

We’ll announce more speakers every week at stablecon.com/usa

Next, I want to say a huge congrats to the TWIF team members who pulled together an amazing New York Fintech Week. This was the 15th year of NYFTW and the first year that TWIF took over its organization — by the numbers:

Making this the biggest fintech week ever… only to be outdone next year! We’ll be in touch soon with more details on how NYC fintech founders can get involved.

If you’re reading this from across the pond: Our Stable Salon series is coming to London next week! Hope to see you there.

And lastly, in a surprise to nobody, presidential admin-linked stablecoin provider World Liberty Financial, which had raised $500 million from Abu Dhabi business partners of the presidents’ sons, sank to new lows. If you’re a stablecoin, your price isn’t meant to be very far from your reference peg. The price drop follows a proposal that would see users’ funds effectively liquidated in order to let the project’s founders cash out. It was also reported that the company has made massive insider loans to the founders using user funds. Unsurprisingly, the presidential family’s names have vanished from the WLFI website.

Please enjoy another week of fintech and banking news below.

Have feedback for us? Let us know. Find me at @nikmilanovic, @twifintech, and @ndm

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The Federal Reserve strengthened its FedNow Service by launching a new API tool designed to bolster instant payment security and fraud prevention.

Commonwealth Bank built a specialized AI agent capable of detecting fraudulent activity in real-time while simultaneously developing automated defensive strategies.

Private credit firms are out hunting for the next big opportunities: in the credit card debt market as traditional banks pull back from issuance due to consumer credit stress.

The European Central Bank inked agreements with ECPC, nexo standards and the Berlin Group to streamline the technical framework for a potential digital euro.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced new initiatives aimed at strengthening financial inclusion and expanding access to affordable banking services.

Experian and Snapchat partnered on a new educational initiative to deliver financial literacy content directly to younger consumers via social media.

Digital and cashless payment methods are surging across emerging markets, rapidly displacing traditional cash transactions.

US banks are facing unrealized losses of $300B, down from $700B in 2023.

Perplexity’s Computer product now connects with Plaid* to link bank accounts, credit cards, and loans. Users can track spending in detail, build custom budget tools, and visualize net worth alongside investment portfolios.

Stripe announced a massive expansion of its ecosystem at Sessions 2026, focusing on embedded finance and autonomous payment agents. Among other announcements, the payments provider partnered with Coinbase to integrate Base into its checkout suite, allowing merchants to accept stablecoin payments more easily, and introduced an "adaptive checkout" feature that used machine learning to automatically surface the most relevant payment methods for every customer.

Meta expanded its digital asset capabilities by integrating USDC support across Polygon and Solana for its messaging platforms.

Tether launched a gold-backed Visa card in collaboration with Fasset, offering neobanking services secured by physical gold reserves.

MoonPay unveiled a new integration with PayPal that enabled users to buy and sell cryptocurrencies directly through their existing accounts.

Vernon Building Society partnered with FintechOS to modernize its mortgage application process and enhance the digital experience for its members.

Lightspark CEO David Marcus unveiled a new banking platform specifically designed to handle payments and financial operations for AI agents.

Finix launched new MCP integrations to support AI-native developer workflows, simplifying the way engineers build payment systems.

Banking Circle launched a dedicated stablecoin clearing service to bridge the gap between traditional fiat currencies and digital assets.

Ant International unveiled its Agentic Mobile Protocol, aimed at enabling seamless, cross-border financial transactions driven by AI.

Binance and Mastercard launched a stablecoin payment card in South Africa, allowing users to spend digital assets at millions of retail locations.

iDenfy launched an identity verification app for WooCommerce merchants to automate fraud prevention and customer onboarding.

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Mason, building the AI workforce management platform for construction, is hiring a Founding Software Engineer, Founding Operations Lead, and Founding Customer Success Lead.

Rainforest, an early stage payments-as-a-service startup that has developed a solution that makes monetizing payments for vertically focused software platforms fair and simple, is hiring a Partnerships Lead.

Shopify has been quietly adding new money transmitter licenses to expand its fintech footprint and gain more control over the payment processing services it offers merchants.

FIS collaborated with several major financial institutions to build a private, digital tokenized money network for faster cross-border settlements.

LendingClub rebranded as Happen Bank, marking a strategic pivot away from its peer-to-peer lending roots toward a full-scale digital banking identity.

Mercury received conditional approval from the OCC to establish Mercury Bank, N.A., moving the fintech closer to operating with its own national bank charter.

Stable Sea* tapped WisdomTree to integrate tokenized U.S. Treasuries into its digital asset ecosystem for institutional and business clients.

Quay partnered with Klarna to offer flexible "buy now, pay later" options, making its eyewear collections more accessible to budget-conscious shoppers.

Per Jason Mikula, “Bolt employees have had their most recent paychecks clawed back from their bank accounts, sources are telling me. Contractors still have not been paid since February.”

The Bank of London reported deepening annual losses as the clearing bank struggled with high operating costs and a challenging fundraising environment.

It emerged that KYC provider Sumsub’s AI is allegedly, '“built by a company that works for the FSB, builds tank recognition systems for the Russian military, and holds drone surveillance patents.”