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According to Ledger Insights, in March of this year, Citibank issued its first native digital structured note on Euroclear's D-FMI tokenization platform, targeting distribution channels for Citibank's wealth management business.Now, Banco do Brasil, a state-owned holding bank, has announced that it has invested $5 million to purchase subsequent notes in the same Citibank project. This Brazilian bank stated that this transaction is the first of its kind for a financial institution in Latin America. The Brazilian bank made the investment through its proprietary funds department on August 19, using its own funds for the instrument rather than investing on behalf of clients. Citigroup issued the note through its Luxembourg entity, with its London branch acting as the issuance and paying agent. The underlying reference asset of the structured note has not been disclosed.

The Bank of Korea released the latest research report stating that the widespread circulation of dollar-pegged cryptocurrencies in the local market may trigger capital outflows, putting downward pressure on the domestic currency exchange rate and increasing volatility.

Blockchain-native fintech startup OpenReserve has received preliminary conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a full-service national bank in Salt Lake City, Utah. The approval process took less than five months, with OpenReserve submitting its application on April 13.OpenReserve must raise at least $210 million in initial paid-in capital within 12 months and maintain a leverage ratio of at least 12% for three years after opening; it must also commence operations within 18 months, or the approval will become invalid. The relevant deadlines are September 2027 and March 2028, respectively. OpenReserve plans to offer tokenized deposits, fund management, foreign agency services, and banking-as-a-service for institutional clients. The full-service national bank license will allow for deposit-taking and lending activities once final approval is granted.OpenReserve previously completed a $25 million seed round financing, led by a16z crypto, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Jump Capital, and Wintermute Ventures. The company intends to establish a wholly-owned subsidiary to issue and redeem dollar-denominated, reserve-backed stablecoins, but this subsidiary has not yet submitted an application to the OCC.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) released Working Paper 1374, proposing a technical solution based on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) to verify the source and integrity of official statistical data. This solution generates cryptographic fingerprints for SDMX datasets and records the hash values of batch data on the XRPL, while the original data itself is not stored on the chain.Users can verify the identity of data publishers and whether the data has been tampered with through digital signature credentials combined with a one-time on-chain query. Prototype testing results show that data publication takes about 3 to 5 seconds, while the verification process only takes about 1 to 2 seconds. The paper specifically notes that this system is currently only in the proof-of-concept stage and has not yet been put into a formal production environment.

The People's Bank of China announced the overall operation of the payment system for the second quarter of 2026. By the end of the second quarter, a total of 10.267 billion bank cards had been issued nationwide. Among them, there were 677 million credit cards and credit card loans, a decrease of about 10 million cards compared to the end of the first quarter, and a decrease of nearly 20 million cards since the beginning of the year, averaging over 100,000 credit cards exiting the market each day. Compared to the historical peak of 807 million cards in the second quarter of 2022, the number of credit cards has been reduced by about 130 million.The mid-year report of listed banks in 2026 shows that the overdraft balances of credit cards from the six major state-owned banks decreased at the end of the first half compared to the end of the previous year. The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China had a credit card loan balance of 597.157 billion yuan, a decrease of 14.39% from the end of the previous year. By the end of June, the cumulative number of credit cards issued by Bank of China was about 152 million, with an increase of 1.76 million cards compared to the end of the previous year; China Merchants Bank saw a net increase of 256,300 cards to 97.7073 million cards.In terms of asset quality, the non-performing loan ratios for Agricultural Bank of China and Postal Savings Bank of China remained at 2.05% and 1.45%, respectively; the non-performing loan ratio for Industrial and Commercial Bank of China rose to 5.37%; and the non-performing loan ratio for Bank of Communications increased from 2.68% to 3.8%. The non-performing loan ratio for China Minsheng Bank rose to 4.22%, and for Industrial Bank, it rose to 3.79%. In the first half of the year, China Merchants Bank generated new non-performing loans of 23.698 billion yuan, with a non-performing loan ratio of 1.90%. In August 2026, the principal and interest of non-performing credit card transfers amounted to 12.2 billion yuan.

According to data from the Central Bank of Brazil (BCB), cryptocurrency purchases in July amounted to $572 million, a decrease of nearly 80% compared to $2.6 billion in June, and a decline of nearly 60% from $1.4 billion in July 2025.Fernando Rocha, head of the statistics department at the Central Bank of Brazil, stated that the changes are part of the adaptation of cryptocurrency exchanges to the new regulatory environment for digital assets, with anti-money laundering controls and governance requirements being significant factors in the reduction of transaction volume. Since 2026, the total amount of cryptocurrency purchases in Brazil has reached $15.25 billion, more than doubling compared to $7.6 billion in the same period of 2025. BCB noted that most of the related transactions involve stablecoins.

The People's Bank of China Open Market Operations Office announced that to maintain ample liquidity in the banking system, on September 7, 2026, the People's Bank of China will conduct a reverse repurchase operation of 500 billion yuan using a fixed amount, interest rate bidding, and multiple price level bidding method, with a term of 3 months (89 days), maturing on December 5, 2026 (postponed in case of holidays).

The Bank of Korea stated that thanks to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix actively expanding domestic production facilities, South Korea's leading advantage in memory chip capacity is expected to further expand.The Bank of Korea expects that new chip factories to be put into production by 2028 will increase South Korea's monthly wafer capacity by approximately 600,000 wafers.

SWIFT service provider Bottomline announced a collaboration with the blockchain infrastructure project Chainlink to enable over 600 bank clients in its network to access blockchain-based cross-border settlements. Bottomline processes over $16 trillion in payments annually and serves 1,200 financial institutions and 10,000 enterprises.Through this integration, banks can continue to use the ISO 20022 standard to send payment instructions, with Chainlink's infrastructure connecting the instructions to blockchain settlements. Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) supports the transfer of tokenized value across different blockchain networks, while Chainlink's Runtime Environment (CRE) is responsible for payment processes, transaction routing, and operational change coordination.CCIP has been recording mainnet activity since July 2023 and is currently connected to over 60 blockchain networks. Chainlink's Project Pangea has covered more than 50 banking institutions in Europe and South Korea, with participants managing assets totaling over $10 trillion, and the project's goals include achieving T+0 settlement for foreign exchange transactions.

Cointelegraph reported that the crypto-friendly bank Revolut has received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to obtain a national bank charter in the United States.The company aims to launch related services by 2027, which will include loans, credit cards, custodial deposits, and cryptocurrency access services.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has preliminarily approved OpenReserve's application for a national bank charter. The company completed a $25 million seed round of financing in April, led by a16z crypto, with participation from Jump Capital, Acrew, Coinbase Ventures, Clocktower, Quona, and the Middle Eastern venture capital fund AAF Management.OpenReserve is led by fintech executives including Dee Choubey, co-founder of MoneyLion, and is committed to combining traditional banking, blockchain infrastructure, and digital asset services, utilizing digital assets and technology to achieve 24/7 operations. OpenReserve is also applying for Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance and has submitted its application to the FDIC.

According to CoinDesk, digital bank SoFi has partnered with cryptocurrency exchange Kraken to interconnect their respective financial infrastructures. Kraken's parent company Payward will join SoFi's settlement network SEN, allowing its institutional clients to transfer dollars and manage liquidity around the clock without waiting for traditional bank operating hours.Meanwhile, Kraken will launch the bank-issued stablecoin SoFiUSD from SoFi, while SoFi will use Kraken Prime as an additional source of liquidity for its clients' cryptocurrency trading. SoFi CEO Anthony Noto stated that the financial system should not close when financial markets remain open; Payward co-CEO David Ripley noted that millions of users will purchase cryptocurrency assets for the first time through the applications they use daily, and the underlying infrastructure should connect deep, liquid markets.This collaboration is part of SoFi's return to the digital asset space. SoFi has already provided cryptocurrency trading in its app and launched the dollar-backed stablecoin SoFiUSD, and in April of this year, it introduced Big Business Banking, integrating corporate banking with digital asset services. Both parties indicated that future collaborations may also expand to payments, fund management, lending, and other digital asset services.

According to Businesswire, the bank-led digital currency network Cari announced that it has raised $32.5 million in its first round of external financing, with all funds coming from banking institutions, including First Horizon Bank, Huntington Bank, KeyBank, M&T Bank, Old National Bank, and SouthState Bank, as well as Glacier Bank.Cari is built on an Ethereum-based permissioned Layer 2 blockchain, aimed at helping banks put funds on-chain through shared infrastructure, providing programmable financial services. The new funds will be used to accelerate bank access and integration, expanding tokenized deposits and programmable currency application scenarios.

Geoff Kendrick, the Global Head of Digital Assets at Standard Chartered Bank, stated that the global monthly trading volume of stablecoins has reached approximately $7 trillion, with Solana accounting for about one-fifth of stablecoin transactions.The interview also discussed the development trends of stablecoin payments and settlements by 2026, as well as how different blockchain networks are forming their own application positioning. Geoff Kendrick shared the progress of enterprises adopting stablecoins and stated that enterprise-level applications will become an important driving force for the further popularization of stablecoins.

According to monitoring by BitcoinTreasuries.NET, investment bank Alliance Global Partners, which manages $2.3 billion in assets, has given Strategy (stock code: MSTR) a buy rating for the first time, with a target price of $217. This indicates a 75% upside potential.

According to Zhitong Finance, Standard Chartered Bank stated that it will expand its institutional-level Bitcoin and Ethereum spot trading business from the UK to the UAE and will launch this business.

The Payment and Settlement Department of the People's Bank of China released the overall situation of the payment system operation for the second quarter of 2025. By the end of the second quarter, a total of 15.238 billion bank accounts had been opened nationwide, including 116 million corporate bank accounts and 15.122 billion personal bank accounts; a total of 10.068 billion bank cards had been issued nationwide, including 9.354 billion debit cards and 715 million credit cards and loan cards, with 775,700 ATMs.In the second quarter, banks nationwide processed 149.789 billion non-cash payment transactions, amounting to 136.536 trillion yuan. Bank card transactions totaled 146.662 billion, amounting to 22.670 trillion yuan, of which consumer transactions accounted for 93.371 billion, amounting to 3.157 trillion yuan. Banks processed 80.053 billion electronic payment transactions, amounting to 85.816 trillion yuan, including 18.217 billion online payments, amounting to 70.785 trillion yuan, and 58.386 billion mobile payments, amounting to 13.606 trillion yuan. Non-bank payment institutions processed 333.845 billion online payment transactions, amounting to 8.211 trillion yuan.In the second quarter, the payment system processed a total of 392.751 billion payment transactions, amounting to 308.483 trillion yuan. The People's Bank of China Clearing Center system processed 5.543 billion transactions, amounting to 22.957 trillion yuan; the UnionPay interbank payment system processed 97.641 billion transactions, amounting to 6.671 trillion yuan; the NetUnion clearing platform processed 283.180 billion transactions, amounting to 14.558 trillion yuan; and the RMB cross-border payment system processed 2.121 million transactions, amounting to 4.594 trillion yuan.

As the bond market experiences significant fluctuations recently, investors are awaiting two sets of key U.S. data that may influence the Federal Reserve's decision: the non-farm payroll report for August to be released this Friday, and the August CPI data to be published on September 11.However, according to Bank of America, these two pieces of data carry different weights in the Federal Reserve's meeting on September 15-16. The bank believes that the non-farm payroll report is more like an "appetizer," while the "main course" that will truly determine whether the Federal Reserve raises interest rates is the CPI.Bank of America analysts stated on Wednesday: "The non-farm payroll is unlikely to be the decisive factor for a rate hike in September. A significantly weak report may reduce the likelihood of a rate hike, but the CPI remains the key data in determining whether the Federal Reserve will follow through with a rate increase. We maintain our judgment for a rate hike in September." Unless there is a significant downside surprise in the non-farm data released on Friday, the employment report is unlikely to become the final deciding factor in the discussions at the September FOMC meeting. The bank particularly emphasized that inflation remains the primary concern for the current Federal Reserve.

According to CoinDesk, 21 international financial institutions have announced plans to establish a new company in the second half of 2026 to promote the issuance of stablecoins, with the specific name to be announced later. The company will initially focus on USD-denominated stablecoins and plans to expand to more G7 currencies in the future, with a priority on euro stablecoins.Participating institutions include Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Wells Fargo, BBVA, Santander Bank, MUFG Bank, and others. The stablecoin initiative aims to serve wholesale, institutional, and retail markets, applying to scenarios such as cross-border payments and digital asset settlements.The group stated that the stablecoin solution will combine bank-level compliance, governance, and institutional risk management capabilities, and plans to comply with relevant regulatory requirements such as the U.S. GENIUS Act and the EU MiCA. The project aims to officially launch stablecoin products in the first half of 2027.