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JPMorgan Chase has been building a network of payments partners over the past three years, now totaling about 120 companies, to help the bank integrate with clients' software and monitor industry trends. Todd Manning, who joined JPMorgan this year as managing director and head of corporate development and partnerships for the bank's payments arm, said the network, formed in 2023, includes partners such as Visa, Ingenico and Epic Systems. The bank has about 30 people focused on new partnership origination, venture investments and M&A opportunities. JPMorgan typically makes non-controlling investments of under 5% equity ownership in less than one-third of its partners, and while acquisitions are possible, they are not frequent.
Omaha-based Pinnacle Bancorp will acquire Southern Bancshares, the parent company of Moulton, Texas-based SouthStar Bank. SouthStar has about $1.4 billion in assets, 16 branches and a loan production office across Austin and central Texas. Terms were not disclosed, and the transaction is set to close in January 2027. Pinnacle, with about $20.9 billion in assets and 164 branches across eight states, will expand its Texas presence beyond the Dallas-Fort Worth area. SouthStar CEO David Kapavik said the bank will continue operating under the SouthStar name through 2027 and that management and staff will remain.
AI agents and IoT devices expand the attack surface in banking, making fragmented security unsustainable. The article argues for fusing security into the network to provide visibility, action control, and continuous compliance, turning infrastructure into a competitive advantage.
On September 16, the Fed raised rates for the first time since July 2023, with another hike projected. For banks under $10 billion, this puts two years of net interest margin recovery at risk. Median NIM rose from 3.36% in 2024 to 3.66% in 2025, driven by maturing loans and repricing deposits. But loan repricing has run out, and funding costs now rise faster than they fall. With non-interest-bearing deposits shrinking and time deposits growing, more funding is rate-sensitive. The article outlines three painful options—pay up, borrow, or shrink loans—and a fourth: using household-level data to identify at-risk deposits and act before the CD cliff arrives.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren has written to the NCUA's acting inspector general, Marta Erceg, demanding answers about a two-week lapse in leadership at the National Credit Union Administration in August, when all three board seats were vacant from former Chair Kyle Hauptman's departure on Aug. 7 until John Crews was sworn in on Aug. 24. Warren cited a Law360 report saying the situation appears to have no obvious modern precedent among federal financial regulators and asked how the agency operated during that time, who was responsible for decision-making, and whether the vacuum constrained or delayed payments to insured depositors of the failed African Diaspora Federal Credit Union. The NCUA OIG and NCUA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Citi has appointed about 12 new private bank leaders in approximately 15 months, signaling its intent to rise in the North America private banking rankings. Chris Biotti, named head of North America for Citi Private Bank in May 2025, said the bank aims to capture more of its clients' assets and drive higher returns. Citi's wealth client assets exceed $1 trillion globally, with about $3 trillion in North America not held at Citi. The private bank has added 43 bankers or investment counselors since Biotti started, and plans to add about 100 more worldwide. Citi's private bank revenue rose 5% year over year to $769 million in Q2.
Online banks and fintechs are winning over younger consumers, achieving the highest rates of checking account customer satisfaction among both millennials and Gen Z, according to a JD Power survey of more than 23,000 U.S. adults. Among millennials, the average overall satisfaction score for online banks and fintechs is 699 on a 1,000-point scale, versus 672 for national banks. For Gen Z, online banks and fintechs score 701, outpacing national and retail banks. These institutions account for 20% of existing primary checking relationships among millennials and Gen Z, but 28% of newly opened accounts, indicating growth. High satisfaction is driven by fee fairness, real-time account visibility, and proactive communication. American Express, SoFi, and Chime rank highest among millennials, while OnePay and SoFi rank highest among Gen Z.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve issued enforcement actions against American Express and its subsidiaries on Thursday for anti-money laundering failures. American Express National Bank received a cease-and-desist order and a $350 million civil money penalty from the OCC, while Amex and its travel-related services arm received a cease-and-desist from the Fed. The OCC said the bank failed to tailor its BSA/AML risk assessment to its business activities and had systemic breakdowns in suspicious activity monitoring, resulting in roughly $13 billion of suspected trade-based money laundering activity between June 2014 and May 2025. Amex CEO Stephen Squeri said the company takes its responsibility seriously and will address regulators' concerns. The penalty is the first civil money penalty imposed on a bank by the OCC since October 2024.
HUD has accused Wells Fargo of discriminatory lending in violation of the Fair Housing Act, according to a letter sent to CEO Charlie Scharf. The investigation will examine the bank's 2017 $60 billion lending commitment to create at least 250,000 African American homeowners by 2027 and its 2022 $150 million special purpose credit program for Black homeowners to refinance at lower rates. HUD Assistant Secretary Craig Trainor criticized the previous administration for using special purpose credit programs to import racial discrimination into the housing market, calling Wells Fargo the 'first mortgage lender to make a public commitment' to implement a racialized home loan policy. A Wells Fargo spokesperson declined to comment. The 2022 program followed Biden-era guidance encouraging such credit programs, which was rescinded in August. HUD Secretary Scott Turner stated that even if Wells Fargo did not violate the law, its practice of dividing Americans based on race is immoral, unethical and un-American.
TowneBank's $154 million acquisition of Blueharbor Bank is set to close in Q1 2027, reducing the pool of North Carolina banks with over $500 million in assets to about 17. The deal, priced at 2.2 times book value and a 17% deposit premium, underscores the scarcity value of remaining targets. Blueharbor, with $628 million in assets, operates five locations and will add to TowneBank's Charlotte metro presence. The transaction is 75% stock and includes board and regional leadership roles for Blueharbor executives.