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Crypto Week Bills Stall Over Demands for Ban on CBDC

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AWS and Vonage Partner to Distribute ‘Natural-Sounding’ AI Voice Agents

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JPMorgan’s Dimon Bullish on JPM Coin and Consumer Spending

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Retailers Tap Non-Prime Customers and Co-Branded Credit to Boost Loyalty

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Crypto Week Bills Stall Over Demands for Ban on CBDC

The legislative project dubbed “Crypto Week” stumbled Tuesday (July 15) when a group of House Republicans demanded changes to a stablecoin bill that was passed earlier by the Senate.

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    These lawmakers joined with Democrats to stop a procedural step that is required to allow consideration of the three crypto-related bills that make up Crypto Week, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

    Following that vote, House Republican leaders met to discuss next steps and told the chamber that they would not hold another vote Tuesday, according to the report.

    Several of the Republicans who voted to halt the progress of the bills, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, said they wanted to add a provision to the stablecoin bill that would ban the Federal Reserve from issuing digital currency, per the report.

    While another one of the three bills being considered during Crypto Week would impose that ban, these Republicans sought to combine the two bills, according to the report.

    Doing so would send the bill back to the Senate for consideration, rather than to President Donald Trump for his signature, per the report.

    A Republican senator told Bloomberg that if the bill is amended in the House and sent back to the Senate, it is likely to fail to get the votes needed for passage.

    Trump and his White House aides are likely to press the House Republicans to make a deal to pass the current version of the bill, according to the report.

    The three bills being considered during Crypto Week could represent the mainstreaming of crypto not just as an asset class, but as a regulated industry within global finance, PYMNTS reported Monday (July 14).

    They include the GENIUS Act, which would regulate stablecoins and require full asset backing; the CLARITY Act, which would define when digital tokens are securities or commodities; and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, which would prevent the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC).

    It was reported Friday (July 11) that investors’ optimism around crypto legislation and the progress it was making in Congress contributed to bitcoin hitting an all-time high that day.

    U.S.-listed crypto stocks were also being lifted by investors’ bets that crypto would enjoy policy wins in Congress during Crypto Week.

    AWS and Vonage Partner to Distribute ‘Natural-Sounding’ AI Voice Agents

    Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Vonage have partnered to deliver “natural-sounding” artificial intelligence (AI) voice agents for use in customer support and proactive outbound engagement like reminder calls and follow-ups.

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      This collaboration brings together AWS’ speech-to-speech foundation model Amazon Nova Sonic, which enables “more humanlike voice conversations,” and the Vonage Voice API, which provides flexible voice capabilities on a global carrier network on a per-second basis, the companies said in a Tuesday (July 15) press release.

      These AI voice agents can be used in channels that include telephones, WebRTC and mobile apps, according to the release.

      The combination of AWS’ and Vonage’s offerings provides a solution that offers responses that are natural and context-aware, development that is seamless and scalability that allows it to be deployed by businesses of any size, per the release.

      “By integrating Amazon Nova Sonic with the Vonage Voice API, we’re making it easier for organizations to deploy intelligent voice agents at scale, enhance customer engagement and streamline operations,” Fabio Cerone, managing director, telecommunications at AWS, said in the release.

      Christophe Van de Weyer, president and head of business unit API at Vonage, said in the release that the collaboration “enables organizations to transform how they engage with customers by adopting generative AI solutions that create added value for internal and external communications.”

      Research firm CB Insights said that voice AI startups raised $2.1 billion in 2024, up eightfold from the previous year. The firm said this growth was driven by advances in voice AI models that gave a big boost to applications in various use cases.

      It was reported Friday (July 11) that Meta acquired voice technology/AI startup PlayAI to support the company’s efforts in AI, which is its chief priority.

      An internal memo from Meta reportedly said that PlayAI’s “work in creating natural voices, along with a platform for easy voice creation, is a great match for our work and road map.”

      In September, Salesforce said it was acquiring AI voice agent developer Tenyx to advance its own AI solutions.

      Salesforce said it would use Tenyx’s voice AI expertise to deliver “more intuitive and seamless customer interactions.”

      JPMorgan’s Dimon Bullish on JPM Coin and Consumer Spending

      JPMorgan released second-quarter earnings results Tuesday (July 15) that spotlighted a thus far negligible impact from tariffs.

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        Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Barnum told analysts during a conference call that consumers and commercial clients are in good financial shape, with strong credit metrics.

        CEO Jamie Dimon said on the call that the bank is committed to making inroads into digital holdings, such as its proprietary JPM Coin and stablecoins in general, and open banking is a key avenue for growth.

        “If you look at indicators of stress, not surprisingly, you see a little bit more stress in the lower-income bands than you see in the higher-income bands,” Barnum said during the call. “But that’s always true… And nothing there is out of line with our expectations. Our delinquency rates are also in line with expectationsall of that looks fine.”

        JPMorgan’s revenues were 10% lower in the second quarter of the year but still beat expectations, coming in at $44.9 billion.

        Shares were down 0.4% during early trading Tuesday.

        According to an earnings presentation, net charge-offs held relatively steady, while consumer and community banking loans were 1% higher to $576.1 billion. Debit and card sales volumes were up by 7% to $487.2 billion. The company saw its active mobile customers gain 8% to 59.9 million.

        Looking ahead, management said net charge-offs in the card business should be about 3.6% in the current year, which has been consistent with previous guidance.

        Gauging the Regulatory Environment

        Analysts asked Dimon and Barnum to take stock of the current regulatory environment.

        “I think it is very important that the regulators step back and kind of look at the big picture now,” Dimon said, adding that “if you look at SLR, GSIPI, CCAR, Basel III, FSRT, the overlap, the duplication, I actually believe that you can make the system simpler, cheaper, more effective, more transparent and safer. The things like Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic did not need to happen if you just modify some things and you create more liquidity, more loans and a safer system. And that’s really what they should be looking at… I’m hoping that over time they do that.”

        “And the second thing I’d add to that, which I think is even maybe more important, is they should answer the question, ‘What do they actually want in our public markets versus our private markets, etc.?’” he said. “We’ve gone from 8,000 public companies until about 25 years ago to 4,000 today… Public markets overseas have gotten smaller and smaller. Obviously, I’m not against private credit. Private credit is growing. And how do you really want to structure this?”

        Looking at Stablecoins

        One analyst asked Dimon: “There’s been a lot of discussion around stablecoin, how stablecoin is going to be impacting banks. And I believe you have an opinion on this. Would love to hear if you could highlight how JPM is thinking about utilizing, leveraging, competing with stablecoin and how the JPMD deposit token feeds into all of this as well?”

        Dimon said the “deposit token is effectively the same thing. You’re moving money by token, you can pay interest. It’s JPMorgan deposit and stablecoins. We’re going to be involved in both JPMorgan deposit coin and stablecoins to understand it, to be good at it. We don’t know exactly, and I think they’re real, but I don’t know why you’d want a stablecoin as opposed to just payment.”

        However, with a nod to FinTechs in the space, Dimon said: “These guys are very smart. They’re trying to figure out a way to create bank accounts and get into payment systems and rewards programs. We have to be cognizant of that. Way to be cognizant is to be involved. So, we’re going to be in it and learning a lot.”

        Open Banking and Data Access

        Dimon did not address the prospect of pricing for JPMorgan’s data access for open banking, speaking more generally of data sharing and that “we think the customer has the right to, if they want to, share their information… It should have a time limit because some [of] these things went on for years. It should not be remarketed or resold to third parties. And so, we’re kind of in favor of all that done properly.”

        Charging fees reflects the fact that “it just costs a lot of money to set up the APIs … to run the system protection,” he said. “So, we just think it should be done and done right. And that’s the main part. It’s not like you can’t do it.”

        He said that a liability shift must be examined as “I don’t think JPMorgan should be responsible if you’ve given your bank passcodes to third parties who market and do a whole bunch of stuff with it, and then you get scammed or fraud through them. They should be responsible. And we want real clarity about that.”

        Looking at the more traditional business lines, Dimon took note of the potential of middle-market firms for lending and payment services, which is a business that will grow no matter what the short-term macro-environment might be.

        Retailers Tap Non-Prime Customers and Co-Branded Credit to Boost Loyalty

        Watch more: Credit Options Help Brands Keep Customers Returning Despite Economic Volatility

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          Consumer sentiment and shifting spending patterns mean that merchants, issuers and traditional credit are facing challenges.

          The expansion of co-branded credit card options to the non-prime consumer segment introduces a pathway to credit inclusion. These programs help boost consumer engagement while offering consumers the potential to “graduate” to more robust credit access as their financial health improves, Concora Credit Chief Commercial Officer Rolando De Gracia told PYMNTS.

          Co-branded credit cards remain the leading engagement methodology for most brands, he said.

          “That person has daily engagement with your brand,” he said. “When they pull that card to get coffee, or they pull their card to buy something else, they’re tapping with your brand. Once someone has that kind of dedicated line of credit or they have that additional reward in their payment methodology with you, the frequency of visits increases.”

          This translates into a rationale for consumers to return to a specific store, book another flight with an airline, or extend their stay at a hotel. Ultimately, this makes the brand “top of mind” when booking decisions are made, potentially swaying a consumer toward a particular offering simply because of the accumulated points, he said.

          From a credit perspective, co-branded cards are still delivering more value to partners than other engagement methods.

           

           

          The Current Environment

          The current economic climate, shaped by the events of the pandemic, has underscored the need for such adaptive strategies. During the pandemic, the behavior of specific FICO bands changed dramatically, leading to a form of “credit score inflation,” De Gracia said.

          Consumers became delinquent on accounts, and banks tightened credit as a result. The traditional approach, which has historically excluded consumers with less-than-perfect credit from loyalty program acceleration through credit offers, meant many potential loyal customers were left out.

          There’s a critical need for alternative providers, such as Concora Credit, to maintain a brand’s overall approval and engagement rates, De Gracia said.

          Concora’s approach directly addresses the challenge of broadening loyalty program participation without diluting the value of existing programs. The company achieves this by collaborating with partners on program design, recognizing that non-prime consumers will likely yield a “lower revenue share” for the issuer, De Gracia said.

          As he told PYMNTS, “any value proposition that you offer to these consumers will be actually incremental to what they have today. They may be members of the partner’s loyalty program, and they’re paying with their debit card. [Merchants and issuers] are getting the very base, and they’re already enrolled in that loyalty. They’re part of the ecosystem for the partner, but they’re not yet getting the acceleration of a credit card. And that’s where we can [come] in and really help.”

          This incremental reward philosophy ensures that retailers, airlines or hotels avoid feeling “underwater in the program,” making the expansion to non-prime segments a sustainable venture, De Gracia said.

          This collaborative spirit, where Concora Credit helps partners understand what truly brings value to this underserved segment by analyzing their loyalty program data, is key to designing effective programs.

          The Starter Card

          A core component of this inclusive strategy is the concept of a starter card. Consumers are already accustomed to the tiered product offerings from banks and airlines, so basic offerings geared toward certain non-prime profiles can be a means to draw more individuals into the loyalty ecosystem, De Gracia said.

          For non-prime customers, who often lack specific airline, hotel or club-branded cards despite frequently shopping at these establishments, a starter card provides an entry point to lead to a “graduation strategy,” he said.

          That strategy addresses the often-rapid credit improvement seen in non-prime consumers who consistently make payments. Unlike prime consumers whose FICO scores remain relatively stable with on-time payments, non-prime individuals — whose credit may have declined due to life events like healthcare issues, divorce or unemployment — can see their credit profiles increase with haste.

          De Gracia said approximately 30% of Concora Credit’s cardholders will improve their FICO score sufficiently within six or seven months to become eligible for the partner’s primary “champion product.” Concora Credit facilitates this by collaborating with the partner’s primary bank, providing lists of eligible cardholders. When these consumers are identified as having improved their FICO score by hundreds of points, they are often offered the prime product.

          “Once that consumer is eligible for that product, they’ll take it,” De Gracia said. “Why? Because of better rewards and lower fees.”

          In the meantime, these credit amateurs become credit professionals.

          The graduation strategy also strengthens the partnership between brands and issuers. When a retailer, for instance, sees approval rates at the point of sale jump from 50% to 70% due to an alternative product launched in tandem with Concora Credit, issuers and merchants become more confident and “motivated to pitch the product,” De Gracia said.

          “Having someone like us with an alternative non-prime product,” he said, helps “really maintain the overall approval rate and the overall engagement for the brand.”