By Maxwell Earp-Thomas, A.J. S. Dhaliwal, James G. Gatto, Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP – AI Law and Policy; Published in National Law Review
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AI-driven “agentic commerce” is no longer theoretical. Today’s AI assistants can already search for products, compare options, populate shopping carts, check out, initiate payment, and make returns, all on behalf of a person who may never see the website on which a transaction is executed on their behalf. In some cases, users move all the way through checkout using stored payment credentials.
While many systems still operate within guardrails (e.g., requiring human user confirmation or operating under preset limits), the direction is clear: AI agents are beginning to autonomously initiate and execute financial transactions on consumers’ behalf. As these capabilities continue to expand, the line between human- and machine-initiated transactions continues to blur, and legal and regulatory implications come into sharper focus.
What Forms of Agentic Commerce Exist Today?
Today’s implementations of agentic commerce generally fall into two practical tiers. The most common is assisted e-commerce, where AI tools support product discovery, comparison, and checkout within a chat box or embedded interface, but the user still provides explicit approval before any payment is executed. A step closer to autonomy is semi-agentic systems, in which the AI is permitted to complete transactions with minimal or no additional user input once predefined conditions are met.
These systems include features such as price-tracking with automatic purchase triggers, where the user sets parameters in advance and the AI executes the transaction when those parameters are satisfied. Autonomous AI agents that manage the full shopping lifecycle on a user’s behalf are growing rapidly. Often a user gives an agent “goals” and the agent identifies and executes transactions to implement those goals without a contemporaneous human decision that traditional payments laws assume will exist.
Agentic Commerce vs. Compliance
The shift to an increasingly automated shopping experience reframes the regulatory conversation. When an AI assistant pays a bill or clicks “buy”, central compliance questions will revolve around authentication, authorization, fraud, and who bears responsibility when an AI’s actions do not align with a consumer’s wishes or when rogue agents are deployed to execute bogus transactions. For regulators, banks, fintechs, and merchants, existing concepts of consent, liability, and consumer protection strain when transactions are initiated by software rather than people. Current regulatory frameworks concentrate on authorization, fraud controls, and dispute resolution, all of which were designed for human-initiated transactions.
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By Dave Kovaleski, Financial Regulation News
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would clarify the process of determining whether a financial firm is systemically important to the financial system.
Specifically, the legislation requires FSOC to work with a company and its primary regulator to mitigate risks associated with its business activities before designating the company as a Systemically Important Financial Institution (SIFI).
The Council is charged by statute with identifying risks to the financial stability of the United States; promoting market discipline; and responding to emerging threats to the stability of the U.S. financial system.
“Since FSOC was created, lawmakers and administration officials have debated the process of determining if a firm poses a risk to our financial system,” Rep. Bill Foster’s (D-IL), the bill’s sponsor. said. “Past efforts by FSOC to designate firms’ risk levels have been controversial or short-lived. This bipartisan legislation strengthens FSOC’s ability to identify and address emerging threats to financial stability and consumers by promoting a more consistent, accountable, and effective approach to oversight.”
The bill now heads to the U.S. Senate for consideration.
By Leslie Picker and Ritika Shah, CNBC
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At America’s oldest bank, 134 new workers don’t sleep or take sick days. They don’t even have names.
They’re what BNY calls “digital employees.” They work side by side with humans. They have unique roles and are evaluated by how well they do them. Some of their jobs were done by people last year.
“The digital employee works 24/7, which is obviously very different to our human counterparts,” said Rachel Lewis, who oversees nine digital employees in addition to thousands of humans as head of payment operations for BNY. “It’s really focused on very specific repetitive tasks that allow our human employees to do much more human, intense, interesting-type roles.”
BNY employs 48,100 humans, down from about 53,400 in 2023, according to a recent earnings presentation. CFO Dermot McDonogh was asked on the firm’s fourth-quarter analyst call last month what the 134 digital employees mean for cost savings at the firm.
“Our head count has trended down a little bit, but that’s not really anything to do with AI yet,” McDonogh said. “We talk about, internally, AI is unlocking capacity. We don’t think about it in the narrow definition of efficiency. It’s all about growing with clients, increasing revenues and optimizing the potential for our employees.”
Across Wall Street, analysts and investors are starting to ask more questions about how the industry’s expenses on AI will translate into higher efficiencies and greater returns. BNY spent $3.8 billion on technology in 2025, or about 19% of its revenue. That’s the highest proportion among its large-bank peers, according to data collated by CNBC.
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By Sergiu Gatlan, Bleeping Computer
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Microsoft plans to introduce a call reporting feature in Teams by mid-March, allowing users to flag suspicious or unwanted calls as potential scams or phishing attempts.
The new “Report a Call” function will be enabled by default, but administrators who want to disable the new security feature can toggle off “Report a Call” in the Teams Admin Center under “Calling settings.”
The feature will be available in Teams call history for one-to-one calls on Windows, Mac, and web, and it will let users click “More options” next to any call and select “Report a Call” to submit a report.
As Microsoft explained, when users flag a call, limited metadata (including timestamps, duration, caller ID information, and participant Teams IDs) will be shared with the organization and Microsoft.
“Currently, users have no simple way to report suspicious calls, leaving organizations without visibility into these threats and without clear guidance on how users should respond,” Microsoft said in a message center update.
“Reports share limited call metadata with organizations and Microsoft, viewable in Microsoft Defender portal or Teams Admin Center. The feature is enabled by default but can be disabled by admins.”
The feature will roll out to Targeted Release customers in mid-March, with completion expected by late March, and it will reach general availability worldwide by late April.
Security teams with Defender for Office 365 (Plan 1 or Plan 2) or Defender XDR licenses can view detailed reported instances in the Microsoft Defender portal, while organizations without Defender licenses will be able to access basic submission data in Teams Admin Center under Protection Reports.
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By Melina Druga, Financial Regulation News
Less than half of Americans, 47 percent, have sufficient liquidity or access to funds to cover a $1,000 emergency expense, according to a survey-based report conducted by Bankrate and its polling partners.
When asked how they would pay for an emergency expense of $1,000 or more, 33 percent of survey participants said they would go into debt through a credit card, a personal loan or borrowing from family or friends; 30 percent would use their savings; 17 percent would rely on their regular income or cash flow, and 20 percent would reduce spending to pay for it or take a different approach.
“Most folks in America live paycheck-to-paycheck,” Mark Hamrick, Bankrate senior economic analyst, said. “This either results in, or coincides with, a lack of liquidity and lack of ability to achieve success with other key financial goals such as paying down debt or saving for emergencies and retirement.”
Other survey findings include:
- When asked what is causing them to save less for emergencies, 54 percent of respondents said inflation followed by changing income/unemployment, 26 percent, and recent interest rate cuts, 17 percent.
- If they were to lose their primary source of income tomorrow, 43 percent said they would be “very worried about covering living expenses.”
By Dave Kovaleski, Financial Regulation News
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U.S. Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND) introduced a bill that would give credit unions more flexibility when lending for non-primary loans.
The Expanding Access to Lending Options Act would permit federally chartered credit unions to permit loan maturity periods for up to 20 years.
Except for primary residences, federally chartered credit unions are not permitted to issue loans for a period longer than 15 years. However, banks and most state-chartered credit unions are not subjected to the same limitation.
“Credit unions provide essential services to communities across the Silver State, particularly in rural and underserved areas,” Cortez Masto said. “My bipartisan bill would provide a commonsense, simple fix that helps people finance their dreams.”
Nevada has two federally chartered credit unions that would be impacted by this bill — the Great Basin Federal Credit Union and the Elko Federal Credit Union.
“Increasing the loan maturity limit for federally chartered credit unions will greatly help the Elko Federal Credit Union,” Todd Sorenson, president and CEO of Elko Federal Credit Union, said. “When interest rates are low, consumers shop around: they want the certainty of a lower rate for a longer term. It’s in this environment that federal credit unions are less competitive. Many customers seeking loans at our credit union have pursued other loan options when we communicate the maturity date limitation.”
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By Amy Howe SCOTUS Blog
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Updated at 3:45 p.m. on Jan. 21
The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared likely to leave Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, on the job while her challenge to President Donald Trump’s attempt to fire her continues.
Although the Trump administration contends that the president acted within the law, a majority of the justices seemed ready to reject the government’s request to allow him to remove her, even if it was not clear whether the justices would send the case back to the lower courts or instead go ahead and rule that Trump does not have a good reason to fire Cook.
Wednesday’s arguments in Trump v. Cook implicated two related issues – the president’s power to fire the heads of multi-member, independent agencies and his ongoing frustration with the actions (or lack thereof) of the Federal Reserve. Since Trump took office last year, the court – on its interim docket – has allowed him to remove members of the National Labor Relations Board, Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Merit Systems Protection Board. The justices also heard arguments in December in the case of Rebecca Slaughter, a member of the Federal Trade Commission whom Trump fired in March. They are expected to decide by summer whether a federal law that bars him from removing members of the FTC except in cases of “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” violates the constitutional separation of powers.
Trump has also been sharply critical of the Fed and its chair, Jerome Powell, since he was sworn in for a second term last year, particularly for its reluctance to lower interest rates. The Fed eventually lowered rates at meetings this fall.
Powell disclosed earlier this month that he is under investigation by Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, for alleged irregularities in the $2.5 billion renovation of the Fed’s headquarters and Powell’s statements to Congress about the renovation. The White House has said that Trump did not direct Pirro to investigate Powell, who attended Wednesday’s argument.
Cook was first appointed to the Fed in 2022; then-President Joe Biden reappointed her to serve a new 14-year term on the board in 2023. Under the Federal Reserve Act, Trump can only fire Cook “for cause” – a term that the law does not define.
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By Eric Steinhoff, Scienaptic AI; Published in CUInsight
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The answer isn’t complicated. The Honda holds its value more predictably, the monthly payments are more affordable across a broader range of incomes, default rates are lower, and recoveries are stronger when something goes wrong.
Yet at many credit unions, both loans are priced identically if the borrower has a 720 credit score. In some cases, the used Honda is even priced higher.
The same logic applies elsewhere in the portfolio. A 2019 pickup truck and a 2019 sedan frequently receive the same pricing treatment, even though pickup truck values have swung dramatically in recent years while sedan prices have remained comparatively stable.
These outcomes aren’t the result of poor underwriting or a misunderstanding of the variables that impact risk. They stem from a deeper issue: most institutions are still using static pricing frameworks to operate in highly dynamic markets.
The hidden cost of static pricing
Across the auto lending industry, a significant share of loans are mispriced, not because credit decisions are wrong, but because pricing systems lag reality. Quarterly rate sheets are being used to navigate markets that change weekly or even daily.
Vehicle values respond to forces well outside traditional credit models: supply chain disruptions, manufacturer incentives, fuel prices, regional demand shifts, and macroeconomic conditions. When pricing assumptions are built in January but loans are booked in June, institutions are effectively flying blind.
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By Cassandra Dumay and Irie Sentner, Politico
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Federal Housing Director Bill Pulte on Friday signaled that the Trump administration is moving past his widely criticized idea for 50-year mortgages in its broader effort to address housing affordability.
“I think we have other priorities,” Pulte told reporters, when asked if 50-year mortgages are still on the table.
President Trump rolled out other policy proposals earlier this week aimed at addressing the cost of home-buying, and said he’d share more affordability measures during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, later this month. The administration is drafting an executive order targeted at affordability issues that are high on voters’ minds heading into a midterm election year.
Pulte’s comment indicates that the proposal for 50-year mortgages, which was panned by officials in the White House as well as industry experts, will not be among the actions in Trump’s order. POLITICO reported that Pulte had originally brought that proposal to the president.
Pulte on Friday said the president is reviewing a list of 30 to 50 home-cost solutions from himself and other top administration officials — including Vice President JD Vance, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett.
Pulte also said Fannie and Freddie, the government-sponsored mortgage entities which his agency oversees, have started carrying out Trump’s direction Thursday to purchase $200 billion in mortgage bonds in an effort to lower home loan rates, starting with a $3 billion buy.
Mortgage bonds are comprised of home loans that government-controlled Fannie and Freddie, as well as private financial institutions, purchase and package into securities that are bought and sold by investors.
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National Consumer Law Center
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New Report Exposes the Unfair, Deceptive and Abusive Practices of Earned Wage Payday Lenders
Financial exploitation is unfortunately nothing new, but the methods used to extract money from people struggling paycheck to paycheck are constantly changing. A new report from the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) delves into the latest face of payday loans – so-called “earned wage access” products.
Picking Workers’ Pockets: Unfair, Deceptive and Abusive Practices by Earned Wage Payday Lenders explores the tactics that earned wage payday lenders use to collect disproportionately high fees and trap consumers in a cycle of borrowing – just as traditional payday lenders do. While most of the debate around this new form of payday loan app has centered on whether the products are loans (they are), unfair, deceptive and abusive practices are unlawful no matter what kind of label they carry.
“Earned wage payday loans exploit low-income workers and are designed to extract high fees from those who can least afford them,” said Patrick Crotty, senior attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. “The earned wage payday loan industry is rife with unfair, deceptive and abusive practices. Enforcement authorities should address those practices, and legislators should reject exemptions from interest rate caps and other consumer protection laws.”
- Recent public enforcement actions by state attorneys general, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the City of Baltimore cited practices of earned wage payday lenders that are allegedly in violation of laws against unfair, deceptive or abusive acts or practices (UDAP). These practices include:
- Disclosing 0% APR, “no interest” or “interest free” for costly loans when up to 90% of users pay fees that frequently add up to $300 or more a year and as much as $1400 over two years;
Promoting “instant” or “fast loans” while hiding high “expedite” fees that far exceed the cost of instant delivery and that almost all borrowers pay; and - Dark patterns that are unfair or abusive tricks to coerce purportedly voluntary “tips” and “donations,” including adding “tips” automatically with complicated, obscure and time-consuming interfaces to remove them, repeat requests for “tips,” and implied threats of consequences for borrowers who do not tip.
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By CU Today
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The Senate Banking Committee on Wednesday postponed a planned discussion of draft legislation that would establish a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies, hours after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong publicly opposed the bill, according to Reuters.
The legislation, unveiled Monday, would define when crypto tokens are treated as securities or commodities and would give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission authority over spot crypto markets. The markup had been scheduled for Thursday.
Committee Chairman Tim Scott said lawmakers and industry stakeholders remain engaged despite the delay. “Everyone remains at the table working in good faith,” Scott said in a statement announcing the postponement.
Reuters noted that earlier Wednesday, Armstrong said on X that Coinbase could not support the bill in its current form, arguing it had “too many issues,” including what he described as a de facto ban on tokenized equities, an erosion of CFTC authority, and draft provisions that would “kill rewards on stablecoins.”
Without Coinbase’s backing, it is unclear whether the markup can move forward. The company has been a major stakeholder in the negotiations and donated millions of dollars to political action committees backing pro-crypto candidates in 2024, Reuters said.
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By Rex Richardson, Quavo Fraud & Disputes/CUInsight
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As the holiday decorations come down and statements post, many of your members are finally getting a clear look at holiday season costs.
They are scrolling back through weeks of transactions, checking for refunds, and reconciling payments. That is often when they spot something that does not look right: an unfamiliar merchant, a duplicate charge, a return that never hit, or a card purchase they are sure they did not make.
This makes January a critical moment in the member relationship. Your team is catching its breath after the rush, budgets are resetting, and back‑office workloads are heavy. At the same time, as dispute volumes spike, member satisfaction can quickly drop. How you handle those first‑of‑the‑year disputes can have an outsized impact on member trust, card usage, and long‑term loyalty.
January is when members reassess trust
The start of the year is often when people make new financial decisions, including what card they use and which one earns the top spot in their physical and digital wallet. Industry analysts estimate that average annual member attrition for credit unions sits in the low double digits, and research shows credit union members are more likely to switch institutions than their bank‑customer counterparts.
These moments of risk are also an opportunity. When members reach out because something has gone wrong, they are not just asking you to fix a transaction; they are asking if you are on their side. If the answer feels slow, opaque, or bureaucratic, the goodwill you built through the holiday season can evaporate quickly. A clunky dispute experience—long hold times, repetitive questions, confusing timelines—can become the final push that sends a member to a competitor promising faster, more digital support.
On the other hand, a clear, empathetic, efficient resolution process can turn a stressful experience into proof that their credit union truly acts as an advocate.
What the data shows about disputes and loyalty
New research from Cornerstone Advisors highlights how tightly dispute resolution is linked to member engagement and growth. Members who experience effective dispute resolution do not just walk away satisfied; they deepen their relationship…