Uncle Sean's Update - 9/25/26

​Happy Friday and Happy Dolly Day ❤️ as 9/25 is Dolly Parton Day: See states, cities hosting celebrations!
 
It’s hard to believe that we are getting ready to kick off 4Q2026 next week!!!  But first, here is the Uncle Sean Update for 9/25/26 (subscribe here for free):
 
Starting off with some macroeconomic news:

• Well…  The bond markets were not happy this week with treasury yields at multi-decade highs across most of the yield curve.
  • Personally, I loved this LinkedIn post by Neil Stanley reminding us that the sky is not falling; and the bond markets and rates may just finally be re-adjusting and normalizing after an extended economic cycle of ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) and QE following 2008.  Yes, many economic reverberations (I sometimes use the term “water hammer effect”) can be felt for years and even decades – AOCI and unrealized securities losses from Covid stimulus (and subsequent substantial rate increases) is another reminder of how long certain economic shocks can take to filter through. 

 

• Coming up next week is BEA 3rd and final estimate of 2Q GDP as well as Personal Income and Outlays (PCE) on 9/30, and the BLS jobs report for Sept (nonfarm payrolls and unemployment) on 10/2.

 
👀 De Novo watch…:

• 🎉 Congratulations to Portrait Bank as they are now officially open for business in Winter Park as Central Florida's first De Novo Bank since 2017!!!

 

• Avant (fintech consumer credit platform) has filed applications with the OCC and the FDIC to establish Avant Bank, N.A.

 
🤖 Some AI notes that caught my attention this week (keeping this light as I have a hard time even spelling AI 😉)…:

• From the regulatory side…  The CSBS has issued Artificial Intelligence Supervisory Framework.  For my FI friends, be sure to check out the linked documents (particularly the AI Use Case Risk Tiering Worksheet – an optional industry tool to support a risk-based assessment of individual AI cases); and update your AI Inventory log / use cases if you don’t already have one.
  • 👉 Be sure to sign up for the Bedel Security Newsletter – my friends over at Bedel Security do a great job of providing a weekly update related to cybersecurity / information security geared towards community banking in an easy-to-follow format (that even I can understand).  Take a look at this week’s blog Shadow AI: The Risk And How To Prevent It.

 

• Consumer focused Agentic AI Commerce (your own personal AI agent) is popping up everywhere in my research lately… [queue up Rockwell - Somebody's Watching Me (Official Music Video) – LOL!]
  • Have you seen Meta’s (err – Facebook) Muse - Muse: Meta's personal AI agent, features & capabilities?  Within its first 12 days after launch earlier this month, Muse had 2.8M total installs globally with 1.8M in the US and Canada (Now #1 among free apps on Apple's US App Store, ahead of ChatGPT) – Source: Meta's Muse is outpacing ChatGPT’s early mobile launch | TechCrunch.  To say it’s catching on would be a massive understatement.

 

• The new normal of KYA (Know Your Agent) in agentic commerce is here… 
  • A new consortium of global banks made up of ASB Bank, Bank of America, Capital One, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, ING Group and NatWest Group united to Collaborate on Principles for Trusted Agentic Commerce by publishing a set of joint principles (Building Trust in Agentic Commerce) to support the development of trusted agentic commerce as it is poised to reshape the future of payments.
    • “The consortium’s next step is to detail in a subsequent paper how the principles can be implemented and it welcomes engagement with customers, industry and stakeholders as it progresses.”
  • 👉 Baselayer (provides financial institutions with the risk and identity infrastructure needed to onboard and underwrite new partners and customers) raised $35M in Series A funding round and launched its new agentic identity suite that enables businesses to identify what agent they're dealing with and if it has the regulatory clearance to proceed with a transaction. Check it out here - Know Your Agent - Baselayer.

 

• Somewhere in an alternate universe…  Sarah Connor is freaking out right about now. 😅

 
Now back to the rest of the Update 😊:

• Walmart’s OnePay continues to expand their financial services.  This week OnePay introduced family and teen banking including checking (with a personalized debit card design), savings, investing, and credit via their Builder Card.
  • Their ambition was summarized in one sentence: “Every kid has a 700 credit score, $1,000 in savings, and five years of investing experience when they turn 18.”
    • By the way…  Did you know that OnePay has 7 million customers???  Oof 😲!!!

 

• Centreville Bank (FDIC 17764; total assets $3.2B) selects Jack Henry to support continued growth and modernization with a full primary tech stack replacement including JKHY for core processing and Banno for digital.  The bank will also be using the JHA Treasury Management platform and Enterprise Workflow.
  • 👉 Very interesting to me is that the bank’s legacy vendor had a core strategic position (same vendor for core, online, and mobile).  Core strategic was once perceived as an almost impenetrable vendor moat, but I am seeing more and more of these full primary tech stack replacements…  For more bank and CU vendor market intel – be sure to reach out to Mr. Bobby Button here at FedFis.

 

• 💥 MANTL scores a BIG win as Provident Bank (FDIC 12010; total assets $25.7B) is live with MANTL Business and Retail Account Opening covering both digital and in-branch account opening across its 135-branch network.

 

• 🚀 Moov announced the launch of Moov Money (okay that’s a really cool name 🤘), a new P2P solution that enables consumers to send and receive money through their existing digital banking experience using only an eligible debit card and a trusted mobile phone connection.  The platform uses Mastercard Move and Visa Direct, with Moov providing the technology that connects the card networks to the P2P experience.  Jack Henry’s Banno Digital Platform is the first to integrate Moov Money, with others soon to follow
  • Another great example of bringing tech back into the bank so that customers don’t have to move money out to third party apps. 💪
    • This Payments Dive article has more good insights - Moov adds P2P competition | Payments Dive.

 

• Narmi partners with GrailPay to bring real-time payment check (powered by GrailPay's risk technology) into its platform to give Narmi’s bank and credit union customers a clear read on whether a linked account is safe before a transaction happens - cutting down payment failures and fraud losses.

 

• CPI announced a partnership with Bankjoy where Bankjoy community bank and credit union clients can offer CPI Push Provisioning, “giving customers a quick, secure way to add debit and credit cards to digital wallets directly from their financial institution’s app or online banking portal.”

 

• Zact (modern spend management platform as a bank partner, not a competitor) launched an expanded commercial banking platform that “integrates with existing bank infrastructure to provide modern expense management, payables, and travel tools, helping banks compete with fintech rivals.” 🤙

 

• StrategyCorps announced its acquisition of Quantuma, and AI-native relationship solution for commercial and business banking for community financial institutions. 👏

 

• Rebolt (API-enabled shared payments platform for community banks) announced the first financial institutions, Chesapeake Bank and Reading Cooperative Bank are live on its community bank-owned payment utility that is purpose-built for small business banking (with integrations to COCC and Jack Henry cores).  “Rebolt brings PayPal, Venmo, stablecoin networks, and instant payments to business customers - inside the bank platforms they already use, making direct payments quicker and easier than ever.”
  • See how it works at Home | Rebolt Financial Technologies.

 

• Tekion, Increase, and Core Bank (FDIC 34363; total assets $1.1B) announced embedded banking solution (Tekion Spend) inside Automotive Retail Cloud (ARC) AI-native dealer management system supporting more than 2,000 dealerships. 

 

• Equifax launched two new solutions to help businesses mitigate automated fraud - Signal Score for Email and Signal Score for Device. “The new Signal Scores are designed to help e-commerce retailers, financial institutions and telecommunication companies protect their digital platforms - such as online checkout lanes, new account sign-up portals and mobile ordering apps - against sophisticated fraud networks and automated threats.”

 

• Pendleton Community Bank, Inc. (FDIC 6176) partners with InvestiFi to bring embedded investing direct into the bank’s existing online and mobile banking platform.

 

• Serial fintech entrepreneur Bill Harris announced the launch of Evergreen.ai, a new AI-powered PFM app delivering “hyper-personalized financial advice 24 hours a day on topics such as financial planning, home ownership, equity compensation and tax strategies” for everyday Americans.
  • Bill Harris is the co-founder and CEO of Evergreen.ai and was formerly CEO of PayPal, CEO of Intuit (TurboTax and QuickBooks), and founding CEO of Personal Capital, an investment advisor that grew to more than $23 billion of investor assets under management.

 

• Dynamic Federal Credit Union (charter 6747; total assets $83M) selects Mahalo Banking for digital upgrade continuing Mahalo’s growth and integration experience for CU’s using Corelation KeyStone as core processing vendor.

 
 
Random Uncle Sean stuff:

• In a much-welcomed surprise, it was a stunning 62 degrees this morning here in East Texas!!!  Having said that, the low temps are supposed to jump back up to the lower 70’s starting tomorrow morning with highs back in the low-to-mid 90’s, so that fall feeling was short-lived (teaser), but it was still oh so nice!!! 🍂🎃
• 🏈 It’s shaping up to be another exciting weekend of college football!  #1 Texas at #14 Tennessee at 11 AM Central on ABC is a must watch game.  Then the channel switching begins as #23 Texas A&M is at #10 LSU and #20 Oregon is at #12 USC and BOTH play at 6:30 PM Central on ABC and NBC respectively.
• It was a tough week so let’s jump straight to the good stuff - the Dad / Bad jokes:
  • What has 8 eyes and 8 legs…???  8 Pirates! 🏴‍☠️ Ayye!!!
  • My insurance company tried to sell me an umbrella policy… I don’t own an umbrella! ☂️🤷‍♂️
  • The day they handed out patience, I left because it was taking way too long.🙃😉
  • Firetrucks are actually water trucks… 🚒
  • As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I remind myself that you can’t always trust Google Maps!!! 🤠

 
 
 
“The world needs good people - be one of them.”
 
Have a GREAT weekend and please stay safe!
 
Uncle Sean
 
Sometimes known as Sean Mayo – contact me directly for scope and pricing of custom reports / analysis projects at [email protected] | 214-604-6961 – or you can contact FedFis Sales Team at 512-960-0911 | [email protected] #FedFisHasTheData FedFis
 
FedFis, LLC disclaimer – The views and opinions of Uncle Sean are of his own and may not necessarily represent the views, endorsements, and/or opinions of FedFis, LLC and its affiliates – we all know he’s a little bit different; but that’s why we love him.