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Welcome to the September 27, 2026 edition of Money Explored—the essential Sunday briefing to stay ahead in fintech.
Stablecoins issued by US banks now have a near-complete rulebook. At the same time, small banks are getting a way to win back payments, and a sanctions scheme has shown how easily the old checks can be gamed.
Three signals. One direction: control of how money moves is being redrawn, and the checks are racing to keep up.
THIS WEEK:
Fed's rules for bank stablecoins: The last big US regulator sets out how a bank may issue a digital dollar.
Moov's Zelle rival: Person-to-person payments move back inside the small bank's own app.
Kremlin-backed fintech's $6.9bn bank trail: How forged invoices slipped past the sanctions checks of global banks.
Plus: Seven UK banks move real customer money as tokens, Europe's central banks push to tighten the EU crypto law, and Binance buys a $100m stake in Circle.
This edition is published in partnership with Attio. See how sales teams are putting AI agents to work on their pipeline below.
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🌎 Major Stories
The Federal Reserve proposed two rules on Thursday for the banks it supervises that want to issue stablecoins. Every coin must be fully backed by short-term US Treasury bills or similar cash-like assets. Issuers must also hold capital against their risks and follow set rules for keeping reserves safe. The second rule sets out how a bank applies, with a business plan and financial records. Comments close 60 days after the rules appear in the Federal Register.
Strategic Takeaway: The Fed is the last of the big US bank regulators to publish its version. The OCC went in February, the FDIC in April and Treasury in August. None has finalised, and the law's July deadline has already passed. Governor Michael Barr's test is simple: a stablecoin is only stable if it can be paid out at face value in a crisis. With the rulebook close to complete, the question for banks shifts from whether they can issue to whether they should.
Moov launched Moov Money, a way to send money between people using the debit cards they already carry. It runs on Visa Direct and Mastercard Move, the card networks' fast-payout rails. Jack Henry, which runs online banking for many small banks and credit unions, is the first partner and reaches about 1,000 of them. Unlike Venmo, Cash App or Zelle, the person receiving money does not need the same app. A phone number or a saved contact is enough to find their card.
Strategic Takeaway: Zelle moves more than $1.2 trillion a year and is owned by a group of the largest banks. Small banks have either joined on those terms or watched customers leave for payment apps. Moov's bet is that the debit card is already a shared network, so nobody has to sign up to a new one. As its CEO put it: "If you have a debit card, we can send you money." If it works, the transfer moves back inside the bank's own app, and the customer relationship moves with it.
A Financial Times investigation says a fintech called A7 moved $6.9bn through the global banking system between late 2024 and August 2025. A7 was set up by Moldovan businessman Ilan Shor and backed by Promsvyazbank, a Russian state bank with defence ties. The FT says it used more than 100 front companies and forged invoices to get past sanctions and anti-money laundering checks. The largest flows ran through First Abu Dhabi Bank and Standard Chartered in Hong Kong, with smaller sums through DBS, Citi and Deutsche Bank. The banks said they keep strong controls, and First Abu Dhabi Bank said it closed the accounts it found.
Strategic Takeaway: A7 was built to replace the Swift access Russian banks lost in 2022. It did not break the system. It used it. Each bank checked its own customer, but no single bank could see the whole chain of front companies. Expect supervisors to press banks harder on who sits behind their customers' customers, and on how they test the trade documents they are shown.
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