Welcome back to your go-to roundup of the most relevant news shaping community banks and credit unions, along with why it matters. In last month’s edition, we unpacked the revival of the open banking rule, the passage of the GENIUS Act and major crypto partnerships, the lawsuit over NCUA board firings, and how multi-cloud strategies are reshaping bank operations. (Missed it? Catch up here.)
This month, we have an action-packed news lineup: The Fed is gearing up for a community bank conference while also dealing with leadership shakeups and a new executive order on debanking. On the payments side, fresh partnerships are streamlining international wires just as crypto oversight shifts and the OCC clears the first federally chartered crypto bank. And at the local level, institutions are getting creative: rolling out fractional stock rewards for Gen Z and even piloting AI servers to give business clients real-time insights.
A series of August developments reflects deep shifts in how oversight, housing finance, and community credit are being structured, highlighting both opportunity and uncertainty for community banks and credit unions:
The new debanking executive order could usher in closer scrutiny of account closure practices, potentially reshaping customer due diligence and reputational risk policies. For community banks and credit unions, this raises both compliance considerations and the possibility of heightened political attention around account management. Meanwhile, FHFA board reductions and Fed leadership changes continue to inject uncertainty into the policy environment, reinforcing the need for smaller institutions to stay engaged and agile in responding to regulatory shifts.
Acceleron, an international payment automation platform, has announced a partnership with Aptys Solutions, a payments technology provider serving more than 5,500 financial institutions. The collaboration integrates Acceleron’s SmartRoute™ FX marketplace into Aptys’ PayLOGICS platform. This enables community banks and credit unions to process international wires seamlessly through a single integration, while gaining access to multiple FX providers and better FX rates.
With SmartRoute, every international wire is automatically routed to a competitive FX marketplace where providers bid in real time, often delivering rates up to 50% lower than traditional pricing. Payments then flow directly to the beneficiary without manual rekeying into a separate correspondent bank, delivering true straight-through processing.
For community banks and credit unions, this partnership offers a turnkey path to automate international wires and reduce operational burden. By eliminating manual entry and routing payments through a competitive marketplace, institutions can cut costs while improving customer experience. The future addition of Acceleron’s currency conversion engine, NudgeConvert, creates a new way for CFIs to capture FX revenue, leveling the playing field with larger banks that have long monopolized this income stream.
Read the full partnership announcement:
A key gathering of community banking stakeholders is on the horizon: the Federal Reserve will host a Community Bank Conference on October 9, 2025, in Washington, D.C., bringing together bankers, industry experts, academics, and other stakeholders. The event will focus on addressing emerging and long-standing challenges faced by community banks and will be available via live stream on federalreserve.gov and YouTube.
Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman announced that the Fed is already examining regulatory frameworks specific to the community banking sector, including the community bank leverage ratio (CBLR). Notably, Bowman proposed lowering the CBLR threshold from 9% to 8% to encourage broader adoption and bolster local lending capacity. Comments are welcome via the joint-agency Request for Information (RFI) on payments and check fraud, due by September 18.
In parallel, Bowman has publicly advocated that community banks lean into emerging technologies like blockchain, crypto, and AI. Speaking at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium, she urged regulators and banks to drop an “overly cautious mindset” and embrace a proactive approach. She flagged stablecoins and digital assets as transformative for payment systems and called for tailored, not burdensome, regulatory frameworks. Bowman also suggested allowing Fed examiners to hold “de minimis” amounts of crypto to develop a firsthand understanding.
As regulators rethink capital thresholds, community institutions could unlock more capacity for local lending, addressing long-standing structural constraints. At the same time, Bowman's push for innovation-minded supervision and tempered caution toward technologies like AI, crypto, and stablecoins signals a more supportive environment for digital transformation. That means community banks may find increased regulatory openness to fintech partnerships and faster onboarding of new tech.
Read about Acceleron's partnership with Atlantic Community Bankers Bank:
Circle Internet Group has accelerated its push into mainstream financial infrastructure through two strategic partnerships:
This surge in institutional adoption follows the GENIUS Act, signed into law in July, which created a federal framework for payment stablecoins, allowing banks and certain nonbank entities to issue stablecoins under federal oversight. At the same time, the Federal Reserve announced it will discontinue its Novel Activities Supervision Program, created in 2023 to oversee banks’ crypto and fintech activities. These responsibilities will now be folded into the Fed’s standard supervisory framework, a move signaling that regulators view digital assets as less of an exotic outlier and more of a mainstream part of banking risk management.
With Circle’s USDC being integrated into platforms already used by banks, community institutions may gain indirect access to stablecoin-enabled settlement without building blockchain infrastructure themselves. The GENIUS Act gives more legal clarity for exploring stablecoin services, while the Fed’s decision to fold crypto oversight into its normal supervisory processes suggests a maturing regulatory stance. For community banks and credit unions, this combination of regulatory clarity and institutional adoption could lower barriers to offering faster, lower-cost, and programmable payment options to their customers.
Read our article about stablecoin impact on community banking:
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Anchorage Digital Bank, the first crypto-native institution to receive a federal banking charter, has cleared a major regulatory hurdle. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) lifted its 2022 consent order, which had cited weaknesses in the bank’s anti-money-laundering (AML) and customer due diligence controls. The OCC confirmed that Anchorage has addressed the deficiencies, closing the enforcement action.
Anchorage CEO Nathan McCauley described the resolution as proof that crypto and federal banking oversight can co-exist, noting the firm invested tens of millions of dollars and thousands of staff hours to remediate issues, upgrade systems, and expand its compliance team. The move positions Anchorage as “the world’s most regulated digital asset bank,” while signaling that other crypto players like Circle, Paxos, and Ripple may have a clearer path to pursue federal charters under a maturing regulatory framework.
Anchorage’s success demonstrates that crypto banks can operate under rigorous U.S. banking supervision, a milestone that may influence how regulators view digital assets within the broader financial system. For community banks and credit unions, this signals that crypto services are no longer strictly the domain of fintechs and exchanges. As compliance hurdles are proven surmountable, more opportunities may emerge to partner with regulated digital asset institutions or consider offering crypto-related services with greater confidence in the regulatory guardrails.
Cardinal Credit Union, based in Ohio, has partnered with fintech provider Bits of Stock to introduce a fractional stock rewards program aimed at members aged 18 to 28. Through Cardinal’s digital banking platform, participants earn fractional shares from ten well-known companies, including Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Tesla, via automated redemption of Visa debit card rewards. A built-in dashboard allows new investors to monitor portfolios and even make trades, offering a low-risk educational investment experience to help build long-term financial habits. Approximately 15% of Cardinal Credit Union members currently fall within the 18–28 age range, making this pilot a strategic effort to strengthen early relationships.
This initiative offers a compelling playbook for other institutions aiming to engage younger demographics: by turning everyday spending into accessible stock ownership, Cardinal is blending financial literacy, loyalty, and long-term relationship building in one seamless experience. If effective, this model could redefine rewards programs and deepen member retention among emerging adults.
Grasshopper Bank, a community bank serving small businesses and fintechs, has become the first U.S. bank to deploy a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, enabling real‑time conversational access to business account data via Anthropic’s AI assistant, Claude. The pilot, built in partnership with Narmi, allows clients to securely ask simple questions like “What’s my checking balance?” or “Who are my top recurring vendors?” and receive immediate AI-generated responses. All data transfers are secured with encryption, ensuring privacy and safety. The functionality is currently available in private beta, with broader rollout planned through Q4 2025.
This pilot illustrates how even smaller institutions can start trying to provide highly personalized financial insights using AI without building complex back-end infrastructure. By integrating an MCP server, Grasshopper enables clients to engage with their data conversationally, elevating user experience and financial literacy. The real opportunity for community banks and credit unions lies in partnering with tech providers to similarly embed LLM-driven insights into their digital platforms. This could significantly enhance member engagement, financial planning capabilities, and competitive positioning, especially among digitally savvy small business owners.
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