Consumer Bankers Association President and CEO Lindsey Johnson applauded the announcement of a federal interagency Scam Center Strike Force. "We look forward to working closely with the Strike Force to advance information-sharing, enhance enforcement and protect Americans from criminal activity -- whether at home or abroad," Johnson said. The initiative is a joint effort by the Justice Department and the FBI, Treasury Department, State Department and Secret Service.

Wells Fargo recently provided its premier checking customers with expanded benefits that include credit card offers, mortgage benefits and fee waivers in certain cases. "When we do a good job on the investment side for those customers, the data would say they bring something like 50% more deposits and lending business to us as well," resulting in a "virtuous cycle," said Mike Santomassimo, the bank's chief financial officer.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. acting Chair Travis Hill said the agency is developing guidance for tokenized deposit insurance, an effort to help financial institutions expand their digital-asset presence. "A deposit is a deposit," Hill said at a Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia conference. "Moving a deposit from a traditional-finance world to a blockchain or distributed-ledger world shouldn't change the legal nature of it."

The National Automated Clearing House Association is set to implement fraud-monitoring rule updates in two phases starting in March, part of an effort to strengthen the ACH network's defenses against sophisticated scams such as authorized push payment fraud and business email compromise. The rules will introduce risk-based monitoring obligations for originating and receiving institutions, with requirements tailored by transaction volume. All affected institutions must establish and annually review procedures designed to identify fraud, signaling a shift toward proactive fraud detection across the industry.

Homeownership and the increasing cost of living were key topics at a White House dinner attended by President Donald Trump and Wall Street executives, including JPMorgan Chase's Jamie Dimon, Blackstone's Steve Schwarzman, Morgan Stanley's Ted Pick, Goldman Sachs' David Solomon, Nasdaq's Adena Friedman and the New York Stock Exchange's Lynn Martin. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also attended. Discussions reportedly centered on addressing affordability concerns, focusing on issues such as inflation, immigration and mortgages.

An unchecked proliferation of stablecoins could dilute their monetary value, creating a scenario similar to a fragmented loyalty points ecosystem, said Umar Farooq, global co-head of JPMorgan Payments, at a Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia conference. If numerous entities continue launching distinct stablecoins, consumers might face confusion over which digital dollar to use and when, which "sounds like having airline miles," Farooq said.

Major banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Citi, are cautiously advancing agentic AI adoption to automate complex, multistep tasks for employees. Only a small percentage have deployed critical workloads with agentic AI, but some are already rolling out AI agents and "digital employees." Regulatory uncertainty and operational complexity are leading banks to proceed carefully, but investment in reshaping business processes with agentic AI continues to grow as banks prepare for broader adoption in areas such as customer service and credit underwriting.

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari remains undecided about supporting a rate cut at the Federal Reserve's December meeting. Citing unexpectedly strong economic activity and ongoing resilience, Kashkari explained that recent data does not clearly support another cut, but also does not rule one out. San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly also expressed uncertainty, although Boston Fed President Susan Collins and other officials advocated for holding rates steady to balance inflation and labor market weakness.