ABA Banking Journal: ABA, 52 state bankers associations urge Congress to close stablecoin interest loophole
December 18, 2025
The American Bankers Association today joined 52 state bankers associations in sending a joint letter to Congress urging lawmakers to clarify and enforce the statutory prohibition on payment stablecoin issuers and affiliated platforms offering yield, rewards or interest to stablecoin holders — a core provision of the GENIUS Act — because of the potential harm to economic activity.
Certain exchanges and other digital platforms are exploiting a loophole to offer yield-like incentives on stablecoins, a practice that “risks disintermediating core banking activity, including deposit taking and lending, which harms local communities,” the associations warned.
“The GENIUS Act envisioned payment stablecoins as a payments instrument, not an investment product. Congress barred issuers from paying interest for precisely that reason,” they said. “Closing the current loophole by clarifying that the prohibition extends to partners and affiliates would restore parity, protect consumers, and align practice with legislative intent.”
High-risk rewards
The associations emphasized that banks operate under strict regulatory frameworks, using deposits to fund lending that supports economic growth. Exchanges, by contrast, “do not perform similar regulated lending activity” and often fund rewards through marketing arrangements or high-risk strategies such as rehypothecation and speculative investments.
“Reducing deposits at banks will impair banks’ ability to make loans,” they said. “Requiring banks to increase deposit rates to compete with those offered by exchanges will make credit more expensive, directly affecting the economy — including for small businesses, farmers, homebuyers, students, and local governments.”
Regulatory mismatch
In the letter, the groups explained the significant consequences of exchanges taking advantage of the interest loophole and the overall mismatch in regulation:
Regulatory imbalance. Banks must compete with unregulated platforms offering higher returns resulting from far riskier activities.
Disintermediation of insured deposits. Consumers may move funds from FDIC-insured deposit accounts into payment stablecoins via exchange-offered products that only sound like interest-bearing accounts but lack equivalent protections. Banks, especially community banks, depend on stable deposits to maintain safety and soundness. When deposits leave the banking system, banks have fewer resources available to lend to small businesses, agriculture, homebuyers and families within their trade area. Exchanges do not recycle funds back into the local economy, banks do. In short, deposit flight into exchange-based products threatens the availability of credit in rural communities and undermines the core economic role banks play across the country.
Consumer risk and potential loss. When an exchange fails, customers are unsecured creditors with no federal safety net – a reality seen in multiple recent collapses.
The letter also includes the following graphic that provides a snapshot of key similarities and differences between banks, issuers and exchanges:
ABA Banking Journal: OCC: National banks can engage in riskless principal crypto transactions
December 9, 2025
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency today issued new guidance for agency staff stating that national banks may engage in riskless principal crypto-asset transactions. The guidance comes as the OCC considers several applications from digital asset firms seeking bank charters.
In a riskless principal transaction, an intermediary purchases an asset from one counterparty for immediate resale to a second counterparty, according to an OCC interpretive letter. The agency already allows national banks to engage in riskless principal securities transactions, and the key difference with crypto assets is the technology involved. “More generally, the OCC has long maintained a technology-neutral stance with regard to permissibility,” the agency said.
The letter was addressed to the agency’s senior deputy comptroller for chartering, organization and structure, who was seeking clarification on the issue in light of several applications from institutions wanting to engage in crypto activities. The OCC said that banks that engage in riskless principal crypto-asset transactions must do so in a safe and sound manner.
“The OCC will examine riskless principal crypto-asset activities as part of its ongoing supervisory process,” it said.
ABA Banking Journal: ABA offers framework for AI legislation
December 10, 2025
The American Bankers Association today submitted a list of principles to guide any legislation relating to artificial intelligence in financial services, stressing that Congress must pass comprehensive laws establishing an AI risk management framework with strong preemption of state requirements.
In a statement submitted to the House Financial Services Committee ahead of a hearing on AI in financial services, ABA noted that banks already are subject to an extensive compliance regime covering nearly all risks associated with AI, including fair lending and cybersecurity requirements. Therefore, any new federal laws must not impose duplicative or inconsistent requirements, the association said.
ABA also warned about the ongoing risk that states will adopt laws governing AI that stifle innovation by imposing conflicting and unnecessary requirements on financial institutions. “In some cases, these laws could impact the way many financial institutions have used AI for the last several decades,” it said.
ABA outlined five general principles to guide legislation on AI:
Avoid a patchwork of state laws and regulations.
Acknowledge the current legal and regulatory framework for financial services.
Support field examination reform by the banking agencies so that supervisors focus on substantive risks rather than technical minutiae.
Fight fraud and cybercrimes by creating stronger penalties for the use of AI in criminal activities while also acknowledging the role the technology can play in combating fraud.
Encourage the development of voluntary strategies for managing AI-related risks, such as the AI Centers of Excellence proposed by the Trump administration.
CISA News: FBI - Government Officials Impersonated
This is an update to Public Service Announcement I-051525-PSA, released May 15, 2025, which can be found here.
Activity dating back to 2023 reveals malicious actors have impersonated senior U.S. state government, White House, and Cabinet level officials, as well as members of Congress to target individuals, including officials' family members and personal acquaintances. If you receive a message claiming to be from a current or former senior U.S. official, do not assume it is authentic and follow the below recommendations to identify suspicious messages.
How It Works
Since at least 2023, malicious actors have sent text messages and AI-generated voice messages — techniques known as smishing and vishing, respectively — that claim to come from a senior U.S. official to establish rapport with targeted individuals. In the scheme, actors contact and individual and briefly engage on a topic the victim is versed on, with a request to move communication to a secondary, encrypted mobile messaging application happening almost immediately. Once communication is established on an encrypted messaging application, actors continue to engage the victim in any number of ways, including but not limited to:
Discussion on a topic the victim is well-versed in, current events, or bilateral relations, including asking about trade and security policy negotiations;
Propose scheduling a meeting between the victim and the president of the United States or other high-ranking officials; or
Note the victim is being considered for a nomination to a company's board of directors.
Actors have also requested victims take certain actions, such as:
Provide an authentication code that allows the actors to sync their device with the victim's contact list1;
Supply Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and copies of sensitive personal documents, such as a passport;
Wire funds to an overseas financial institution under false pretenses; and
Request the victim introduce the actor to a known associate.
In most cases, actors make initial contact with a victim via SMS and request the conversation be moved to encrypted mobile applications, such as Signal, Telegram, and WhatsApp. An example of an initial message is below.
Smishing is the malicious targeting of individuals using Short Message Service (SMS) or Multimedia Message Service (MMS) text messaging. Vishing which may incorporate AI-generated voices, is the malicious targeting of individuals using voice memos. Both smishing and vishing use tactics like spear phishing, which uses email to target specific individuals or groups.
Recommendations
The following guidance can be used to identify a suspicious message and help protect yourself from this campaign.
Spotting a Fake Message
Verify the identity of the person calling you or sending text or voice messages. Before responding, research the originating number, organization, and/or person purporting to contact you. Then independently identify a phone number for the person and call to verify their authenticity.
Carefully examine the email address, messaging contact information, including phone numbers, URLs, and spelling used in any correspondence or communications. Scammers often use slight differences to deceive you and gain your trust. For instance, actors can incorporate publicly available photographs in text messages, use minor alterations in names and contact information, or use AI-generated voices to masquerade as a known contact.
Look for subtle imperfections in images and videos, such as distorted hands or feet, unrealistic facial features, indistinct or irregular faces, unrealistic accessories such as glasses or jewelry, inaccurate shadows, watermarks, voice call lag time, voice matching, and unnatural movements.
Listen closely to the tone and word choice to distinguish between a legitimate phone call or voice message from a known contact versus AI-generated voice cloning, as they can sound nearly identical.
AI-generated content has advanced to the point that it is often difficult to identify. When in doubt about the authenticity of someone wishing to communicate with you, contact your relevant security officials or the FBI for help.
How to protect Yourself from Potential Fraud or Loss of Sensitive Information
Never share sensitive information or an associate's contact information with people you have only met online or over the phone. If contacted by someone you know well via a new platform or phone number, verify the new contact information through a previously confirmed platform or trusted source.
Do not send money, gift cards, cryptocurrency, or other assets to people you do not know of have only met online or over the phone. If someone you know (or an associated of someone you know) requests that you send money or cryptocurrency, independently confirm their contact information prior to taking action. Also, critically evaluate the context and plausibility of the request.
Do not click on any links in an email or text message until you independently confirm the sender's identity.
Be careful what you download. Never open an email attachment, click on links in messages, or download applications at the request of or from someone you have not verified.
Set up two-factor (or multi-factor) authentication on any account that allows it and never disable it. Actors may use social engineering techniques to convince you to disclose a two-factor authentication code, which allows the actor to compromise and take over accounts. Never provide a two-factor code to anyone over email, SMS/MMS text message, or encrypted messaging application.
Create a secret word or phrase with your family members to verify their identities.
If you believe you have been the victim of the campaign described above, contact your relevant security officials. The FBI requests victims report any incident to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) at https://www.ic3.gov/.
Disclaimer
The information in this document is being provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The FBI does not endorse any commercial entity, product, company, or service, including any entities, products, or services linked within this document. Any reference to specific commercial entities, products, processes, or services by service mark, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by FBI.
1Access to the targeted individual's contact list is used to enable further impersonation efforts or targeting. Once actors have access to the victim's contact list, they send out another round of smishing or vishing messages, this time impersonating the last victim or another notable figure the new targeted individual would logically come in contact with.↩
AARP: Many Scammers Now Ask for Payment in Gold Bars
June 20, 2024 | Matt Alderton, AARP
Linda Khandro, 77, is a scientist, educator, musician and artist in Seattle who found herself in an anxious frenzy last September, packing up three gold bars in an unmarked box that she then placed in the backseat of a car parked across the street from her home — a courier who was picking up her life savings, now in the form of gold, on behalf of the government, she was told.
The reason? A supposed official from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) told her that her accounts had been hacked and used to commit fraud and theft; to avoid arrest, she needed to send her money to a secure location until the case was resolved. She bought the bars, delivered to her home by UPS, after withdrawing $233,000 in retirement savings from her bank account — funds she couldn’t access unless she was retired. So she’d abruptly retired from her job as a college professor after nearly 32 years of teaching.
Khandro ended up transferring a total of more than $400,000 (some of it in cash and bitcoin), nearly all she had, before realizing that she’d been the victim of an elaborate scam, as she recounted in a March 2024 episode of AARP’s The Perfect Scam podcast. “It was like the walls of my house blew down,” recalled Khandro, who described her emotions as “absolute rage.… I’ve never felt that angry in my life ever.”
While versions of this scam are disturbingly common, criminals asking for payment in gold bars is a relatively new twist, one that the FBI is seeing more frequently. From May to December 2023, its Internet Crime Complaint Center saw an uptick in scammers asking victims to liquidate their assets into cash or precious metals. In that time, the FBI reported in January, victims collectively lost over $55 million.
In March the FTC warned that many such scammers are pretending to be affiliated with the FTC, sometimes using real employees’ names.
What a gold bar scam looks like
Khandro’s experience is similar to other scams involving gold bars. Common elements include:
Scammers reach out to victims by phone, email, text message or other means, pretending to be someone they’re not — for example, someone from the IT department at a trusted technology company, a representative of the victim’s bank or an official from a government agency. Sometimes there will be multiple individuals claiming to represent multiple parties.
The criminals then inform victims that their financial accounts have been hacked or are vulnerable to hacking. To protect their wealth, victims are instructed to liquidate their accounts and purchase gold, silver or other precious metals.
Once victims obtain the precious metals, scammers send couriers to retrieve them at victims’ homes, with the promise that they will safeguard the assets in a protected account on the victims’ behalf. Instead, the scammers take the precious metals and disappear with them.
Why gold?
Current events may be driving the increase in gold bar scams, says investment banker James Rickards, author of The New Case for Gold, who notes that the apparent stability of gold is appealing in the face of inflation, economic uncertainty and geopolitical instability. “Physical gold is a pretty good hedge,” he says. “Because it’s a tangible asset like real estate or fine art, it can’t be hacked and it can’t be frozen.”
Older adults tend to be particularly receptive to gold, which makes it a logical medium for scammers who are targeting them, says Darius Kingsley, managing director and head of consumer business practices at JPMorgan Chase & Co. “Gold appeals to a lot of older Americans in the same way that cryptocurrency often appeals to a lot of younger Americans,” he says. “It’s sort of seen as a store of value. It’s seen not only as a place where you can shield yourself from fluctuations in the dollar and inflation, which is very much in the news right now, but as a place where in an appreciating market you might make a lot of money.”
Indeed, the price of gold has risen 36 percent in the past five years, from $1,395 per ounce in 2019 to $1,900 per ounce in 2023, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. And in May 2024, gold prices reached a new record high of almost $2,440 per ounce.
For scammers, gold may have other advantages: It’s easy to transport across borders and is virtually untraceable when criminals eventually sell it to jewelers and other buyers who end up melting it down. Gold bars “are impossible to track,” said Maryland’s Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy in a warning on a local news site after an area resident lost nearly $800,000 to a gold bar scam in February.
Red flags for gold bar scams
A request for gold: The very premise of paying in the form of gold bars is suspect, says Zulfikar Ramzan, chief scientist and executive vice president of product and development at digital security company Aura. “No legitimate entity like the U.S. government, and no reputable business, is going to ask you to buy gold or precious metal,” he says.”
Out-of-the-blue communications: Like many other scams, gold bar scams typically begin with a fraudulent email, text message, internet pop-up or phone call from someone you don’t know.
Urgency: Pleas for urgency and immediacy are suspicious. Legitimate banks and businesses “will never contact people with a sense of urgency that you have to act immediately,” Kingsley says. “Scammers will, because they know panic will overcome rational judgment.”
Secrecy: Scammers will almost always tell you not to tell anyone about your interactions with them.
Suggesting that you need to send your money somewhere to make it safe: “If anyone tells you that you need to move your money or withdraw your money, that’s probably a scam,” Kingsley says. “All alarm bells should be going off.”
Couriers: Compared to other digital scams, the use of couriers makes gold bar scams unique. “For a lot of folks, the fact that there’s a physical person involved might increase the legitimacy of a situation. But in the hybrid world we live in, that’s not the case. Even if someone shows up at your doorstep, don’t trust them,” says Ramzan, who notes that couriers themselves might be innocent bystanders who either responded to a help wanted ad or work for a legitimate courier service. “Oftentimes, the person who’s showing up at your doorstep may not even realize they’re part of a scam.”
How to protect yourself from gold bar scams
Screen all inbound communications from people not in your contact list. “Don’t interact with anybody who contacts you by email or telephone,” Rickards says. “For routine inquiries, [government agents] don’t call you or email you. They send you a letter.”
Verify. Rather than answering a phone call or message, look up the phone number for the relevant bank, business or government agency and call them directly to ask if the communication was legitimate.
Talk to someone you trust before sending a stranger money. As soon as a stranger tells you that something is a secret, it’s probably a good time to share that secret with someone who can look at the situation in a more objective light.
The SDBA offers holiday signs that banks can print and display to notify customers when the bank will be closed for standard holidays. The signs are set up to be printed on 8.5x11" paper and are provided as a high-resolution pdf file. Banks may print these signs and use as they see fit.
Participants will learn how to assess and analyze a bank’s financial performance by working with data from real institutions. Using financial statements from one sample financial institution along with statements from their own banks, participants will become familiar with the ins and outs of balance sheets and income statements and learn how to apply key performance metrics to the data presented in these documents.
Having learned how to interpret and analyze a bank’s financial statements, participants will gain deeper insight into the factors affecting bank performance. Later sessions in this course will address ways in which performance may be hindered or improved by funding strategies and risk management. Ultimately, participants will be able to review a bank’s financial statements to identify strengths and weaknesses and be able to recommend changes that will lead to improved performance.
In the final session of this course, participants will put what they have learned into practice. Participants will analyze a new data set, rate the bank’s performance and suggest strategic adjustments that might benefit the bank.
Ready to take your agricultural lending skills to the next level? Join us June 22-25, 2026, on the scenic campus of Black Hills State University in Spearfish, SD for an immersive, hands-on school designed specifically for beginning ag bankers. Sponsored by the South Dakota Bankers Association, this intensive program covers all aspects of ag lending—including credit analysis, scoring and risk rating, managing problem loans, and collaborative case studies.
CURRICULUM HIGHLIGHTS
The National School for Beginning Ag Bankers is designed to give you the knowledge and confidence to make smarter, stronger lending decisions. Perfect for ag bankers with zero to three years of experience, this program blends expert instruction with practical, hands-on learning.
What You’ll Learn:
The current ag economy and industry trends
Balance sheet and working capital analysis
Earnings and cash flow analysis
Futures, options, and risk management strategies
Loan servicing and management assessment
Customer profiling and relationship-building techniques
With 25+ hours of interactive instruction, you’ll tackle real-world challenges through case studies and problem-solving exercises. A dynamic bank simulation lets you see firsthand how your lending decisions impact the entire bank operation—across all departments.
Participating in learning opportunities outside the bank can be challenging. Take advantage of the SDBA's extensive selection of webinars and on-demand training to enhance your banking expertise directly from your computer.
The American Bankers Association today joined 52 state bankers associations in sending 
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency today ![Simple diagram of a smartphone with a generic text-messaging app interface. The message reads: [redacted content] let's schedule a Signal call. My Signal no is [redacted content] You have a message from the [redacted content]'](https://www.ic3.gov/img/PSA/2025/251219-2.jpg)
Smishing is the malicious targeting of individuals using Short Message Service (SMS) or Multimedia Message Service (MMS) text messaging. Vishing which may incorporate AI-generated voices, is the malicious targeting of individuals using voice memos. Both smishing and vishing use tactics like spear phishing, which uses email to target specific individuals or groups.
The SDBA offers holiday signs that banks can print and display to notify customers when the bank will be closed for standard holidays. The signs are set up to be printed on 8.5x11" paper and are provided as a high-resolution pdf file. Banks may print these signs and use as they see fit.
