Law and Regulation

Circle Internet Group Inc. said its plan to establish First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., has been approved by the Comptroller of the Currency. The bank’s operating name will be Circle National Trust. Circle submitted its banking application June 30 last year and received conditional approval in December. The move …

Identity-authorization network Proof and business-identity platform Enigma Technologies Inc. are looking to a new certificate program to take on the issue of how to trust businesses operating in an agentic-commerce environment. Announced Thursday, the program, called Business Certificates, will be a verified credential layer that identifies a participating business to …

A blockchain ledger developed by the financial-messaging platform Swift debuted with an announcement early Thursday by the Brussels-based network. Declaring the system “ready for initial use,” Swift said the technology will enable cross-border payments at all times of day or night using tokenized deposits, or digital equivalents of fiat currency. …

The economics of proprietary debit networks appears to be asserting itself as a consortium of big banks is reportedly looking to acquire a debit card system from Fiserv Inc. The banking group, which includes JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and PNC Financial Services Group, has had “tentative discussions” …

NCR Voyix Corp. has agreed to serve as the exclusive point-of-sale technology provider for Pizza Ranch Inc. at both company-owned and franchise locations. The chain operates 221 restaurants across 15 states. Cambria County Transit Authority in Pennsylvania said it has worked with transit-technology platform  Modeshift to launch an account-based fare-collection platform throughout its network. …

The buy now, pay later specialist Klarna AB said early Monday it has submitted applications with U.S. regulators to start an industrial bank called Klarna Bank USA. The company’s applications, filed with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. as well as the Utah Department of Financial Institutions, follow its move toward banking in …

Klarna AB said its PriceRunner price-comparison service has won $1.97 billion in damages in its case against Google. PriceRunner had accused the online search giant of exercising preferential treatment for its own comparison shopping platform, causing lost revenue for PriceRunner. Klarna acquired PriceRunner in 2022 for $124.36 million. Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. …

No sooner has agentic commerce entered the domain of digital payments than questions have sprung up regarding issues of trust and identity. The trust issue in particular came to the fore early Monday with survey results indicating that just 19% of adult consumers in the U.K. trust that AI agents …

The growing prominence of agentic commerce has raised questions about the potential for fraud in these transactions, and in particular the problem of verifying who is behind the agents. Now, technology is emerging to address that question. In one example, Boston-based Notarize Inc., which does business as Proof, introduced on …