Circle Mulls Bank Charter, Unveils Cross-Border Payments Network
More digital assets companies are expanding into traditional financial services territory, as evidenced by two recent moves by Circle. The firm, best known for its USDC stablecoin, revealed plans to explore applying for a bank charter. Gaining a bank charter would allow the crypto company to offer traditional lending products and take deposits. Circle also […]
Sam’s Club’s Ambitious Plan to Forgo Checkout Lanes
After a successful pilot at a store in Grapevine, TX, Sam’s Club will redesign all 600 of its locations to remove both self-serve and cashier checkouts, requiring customers to check out using its mobile app. Traditional checkouts will be replaced by a system known as Scan & Go, which allows members to scan products with […]
Capital One Moves Forward
It is more than a big deal that the Capital One-Discover acquisition passed its last two regulatory hurdles. The biggest credit card deal in U.S. history moves forward in mid-May 2025. In an all-stock deal, more than $100 billion in loan book will pass to Capital One, leaping the Richmond, VA lender to the top […]
Real-Time Payments Aren’t Yet the Next Big Thing for Merchants
There was substantial buzz when Walmart announced that—with Fiserv’s help—it was launching support for real-time payments through FedNow and the RTP network last year. However, for all the speculation that real-time payments will be the way of the future, there are reasons most consumers aren’t using pay-by-bank at retailers yet—and might not start any time […]