The OCC writes the stablecoin rulebook, GCash lists in Manila, and Western Union moves remittances on-chain

Monday, 26 October 2026  ·  12 min read

In this issue

Stablecoins get a rulebook and a remittance giant

The OCC published the rule that will decide who may issue a dollar stablecoin in the United States from 18 January 2027. A day earlier, Western Union said it will pay out remittances in its own stablecoin, and Mastercard launched a service that scores the risk of a stablecoin payment before it goes on-chain. In Manila, GCash parent Mynt completed the largest IPO in Philippine history, and in Beijing the central bank governor put the yuan third among payment currencies on a wider count.

On 20 October, Noah said Western Union selected it to run the infrastructure behind Receiver Redirect, a service that lets senders at Western Union’s more than 500,000 agent locations deliver money as USDPT, the US dollar stablecoin issued for Western Union by Anchorage Digital Bank on Solana. Recipients collect the funds in a Western Union wallet, and the service will cover more than 60 currencies in more than 200 countries and territories (Noah).

At Money20/20 USA on 19 October, Mastercard introduced an API that scores fraud, scam and sanctions risk on stablecoin payments before funds move on-chain, with Borderless.xyz and Keyrails as the first partners. Mastercard cited a study of 593 million stablecoin transfer events in 2025 in which nearly 60% were multi-step transactions. The service launches in North America, with worldwide availability expected in 2027 (Mastercard).

On 21 October, Klarna launched Consumer FX, which lets its 120 million consumers in 26 countries buy from any participating Klarna merchant and pay in their home currency with no exchange fee, with the rate shown upfront. Klarna said early results show a 5% lift in conversion for merchants (Klarna).

On 22 October, Hong Kong-based LianLian Global said its social-commerce, marketplace and e-commerce clients can send payouts to PayPal accounts in 96 countries using only an email address or phone number, and to Venmo accounts in the US, through PayPal Payouts (PYMNTS; Digital Transactions).

Nacha reported on 20 October that the ACH Network carried 9.3 billion payments worth $25.6 trillion in the third quarter, up 5.9% and 10.2% from a year earlier. Same Day ACH reached 470.4 million payments worth $1.3 trillion, against $970.4 billion a year earlier, and B2B payments rose 9.7% to nearly 2.3 billion (Nacha; Digital Transactions).

Marqeta said on 19 October that it now processes the Square Credit Card, Block’s business card for sellers, on the American Express network, alongside Square’s debit and prepaid programmes. Block said existing cardholders were migrated without disruption (Marqeta).

On 20 October, the three companies said a live pilot lets BILL’s payment agent, registered through Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol, pay approved invoices by card on Billtrust supplier portals with tokenised credentials and no shared portal logins. The agent only executes payments the buyer has already approved (Visa).

On Meta’s third-quarter call on 21 October, Mark Zuckerberg said about 25% of Muse users ask it to shop, including travel planning, with an average purchase of about $200. He said Meta “had to work with Stripe to raise credit limits” in the agent’s first week. Muse pays through Stripe’s Link wallet and has about 10 million sign-ups in the US and Canada (Payments Dive).

Mynt began trading on the Philippine Stock Exchange on 20 October under the ticker GCASH. The IPO raised ₱60.9 billion at ₱6.60 a share including the overallotment, the largest in PSE history, and Mynt listed with a market capitalisation of ₱441.5 billion, making it the seventh-largest domestic company on the exchange. The PSE said 140,725 GCash users invested about ₱1.1 billion through the app (PSE; TWTWIP). Only ₱10.6 billion was new money for Mynt, and the remaining ₱50.3 billion went to selling shareholders (Rappler).

At the Financial Street Forum on 19 October, PBOC Governor Pan Gongsheng said the yuan accounts for 6% to 7% of global payments once flows through CIPS and China’s domestic bank networks are counted, which would rank it third. On Swift data it ranks fifth with a 3% to 4% share (Caixin).

On 21 October, the PBOC’s digital yuan operations centre launched DCEPS, an upgraded central bank e-CNY system, and an e-CNY smart contract service framework. By the end of September, cumulative e-CNY transactions reached 4.3 billion, worth about ¥31 trillion. September alone saw 99.67 million transactions worth about ¥1.87 trillion, up 12% and 123% from a year earlier (Xinhua).

Tenpay said users of 60 overseas e-wallets, including PayPal and ShopeePay, can now scan QR codes at WeChat Pay merchants in mainland China through a cross-border gateway built with UnionPay International and NetsUnion. It also described TenPayGo, its payment app for overseas visitors (China Fintech, citing Mobile Payment Network, 23 October).

On 21 October, the OCC published its final rule for payment stablecoin issuers under its jurisdiction, covering reserve assets, redemption, risk management, custody, capital and applications. The rule and the act take effect on 18 January 2027, and anti-money-laundering and sanctions rules will follow in a separate rulemaking with the Treasury (OCC; OCC Bulletin 2026-50). A companion bulletin says issuers already operating in the US can ask to waive the prior-approval requirement if they have a substantially complete application pending by that date (OCC Bulletin 2026-51).

On 22 October, buy now, pay later lender Sezzle said it has applied to the OCC for a national trust bank charter, dropping its earlier plan for a Utah industrial loan company licence. Payments Dive reports that Block, Ramp, Avant and Modern Treasury have also sought OCC charters this year (Payments Dive).

Western Union’s token meets the OCC’s rulebook

Western Union plans to let a sender walk into one of its more than 500,000 agent locations and have the money arrive as a stablecoin. The token is USDPT, a US dollar stablecoin issued for Western Union by Anchorage Digital Bank on Solana, and Noah’s infrastructure handles the prefunding, conversion and delivery into a Western Union wallet (Noah). Recipients can hold the balance indefinitely and spend it with the Stablecard that Western Union announced in August.

Noah announced the deal one day before the OCC published the rule that will govern issuers like Anchorage. From 18 January 2027, anyone issuing a payment stablecoin in the United States needs approval as a permitted payment stablecoin issuer, and issuing without it carries criminal penalties (OCC Bulletin 2026-51). The final rule sets standards for reserve assets, redemption, risk management, audits, custody and capital, and leaves anti-money-laundering and sanctions rules to a separate rulemaking with the Treasury (OCC Bulletin 2026-50).

How much disruption January brings depends on the waiver policy. The OCC says it generally expects to grant existing US issuers a waiver from the prior-approval requirement, for up to 12 months, if they have a substantially complete application on file. It has found no general reason to waive any other requirement, because issuers have had 18 months since the act passed to prepare. New issuers that do not yet operate in the US should expect to wait for approval before they launch.

The OCC has not yet opened its application window, because it is waiting for the Office of Management and Budget to approve the forms. Once the window opens, the agency has 30 days to say whether an application is complete and up to 120 days after that to decide, so an issuer that files in late November could still be waiting on 18 January and operating under a waiver.

For payments companies, choosing a stablecoin partner has become a regulatory decision as well as a commercial one. Western Union picked a bank issuer for USDPT. Visa Direct’s stablecoin prefunding, covered here last week, uses Circle’s USDC (TWTWIP), and Mastercard’s Stablecoin Security scores risk before funds go on-chain (Mastercard). Each of those products relies on the issuer behind the token holding approval, or a waiver, on 18 January.

Noah cites World Bank figures that put global remittance flows at $905 billion a year, with bank fees around 6% of the amount sent. Western Union keeps its cash collection network at the sending end and moves the payout leg onto a token that will sit under a federal rulebook. Watch for the date the OCC opens applications, and for how many existing issuers file in the first week.

permitted payment stablecoin issuer

Under the GENIUS Act, a permitted payment stablecoin issuer is a company approved by a regulator to issue a payment stablecoin in the United States. From 18 January 2027, issuing a payment stablecoin without that status carries criminal penalties. The OCC oversees subsidiaries of national banks and federal savings associations, federal qualified issuers that are not banks, some state qualified issuers and foreign issuers, and its final rule this week sets the standards they must meet (OCC Bulletin 2026-50).

Western Union launched wire money transfer in 1871, five years after it introduced the first stock ticker. It stopped its communications business in 2006, when The New York Times described it as “the world’s largest money-transfer business” (Wikipedia). The company that once moved money by telegraph will now deliver it on Solana.