Retail Banking

Dallas – – September 15, 2026 -- Populus Financial Group, parent company of ACE Cash Express, has donated to Vogel's Bridge to Hope program, a two-year initiative in North Texas that helps homeless parents secure housing and build stability plans while providing early childhood education for their children.

National campaign raised more than $160,000 for four charities

The funding came through the 2026 Give A Little Campaign, which generated over $160,000 nationwide for organizations including AdoptAClassroom.org, Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation, Autism Speaks, and Vogel. The campaign operates under the ACE Community Fund, Populus's charitable-giving arm established in 2004.

Chicago – September 15, 2026 -- ABOC, also known as Amalgamated Bank of Chicago, has relocated its corporate headquarters and opened a new full-service branch at 101 N. Wacker Drive in the city's Loop neighborhood, occupying roughly 40,000 square feet of office and retail space.

Bank consolidates operations into two executive floors plus ground-floor branch

The new footprint includes two floors dedicated to executive offices and operational teams, alongside a full-service branch on the ground floor at the corner of Wacker Drive and Washington Street. Founded in 1922, ABOC serves unions, public entities, businesses and individuals nationwide, and describes the move as a milestone in its relationship-driven banking model.

Charlotte, N.C. – September 14, 2026 -- Truist Financial Corp. (NYSE: TFC) has completed full deployment of its AI Call Summaries tool across care centers, generating more than 4.5 million automated call summaries in the second quarter of 2026 alone and now covering over 70% of inbound client interactions.

Generative AI converts client calls into structured summaries within seconds

The technology, live since the third quarter of 2025, automatically documents client conversations, removing manual note-taking from teammate workflows. Truist's average care center call runs more than eight minutes, and the tool is designed to capture key themes, client needs and resolution outcomes in real time.

Chicago – September 13, 2026 -- Alliant Credit Union, a $20 billion-asset institution with nearly 1 million members, has partnered with Blend Labs Inc. (NYSE: BLND) to launch a fully digital mortgage and home equity lending platform.

Members can move from instant prequalification to full application in minutes

The new system lets borrowers complete mortgage applications independently or with support from Alliant Loan Specialists. Dan Bauer, head of residential lending at Alliant, said the platform is designed to help members move quickly in a competitive housing market and deliver market-leading turn times from application to closing.

Nuremberg – September 13, 2026 -- Three-quarters of Germans have already financed a purchase, while missed payment deadlines among adults under 30 rose to 23 percent from 14 percent in autumn 2025, according to the TeamBank Liquidity Barometer.

Younger consumers treat financing as routine, survey shows

Some 33 percent of Germans under 30 now consider invoice purchases, installment credit and other financing forms self-evident, a 12-percentage-point jump from autumn 2025. This age group also plans to spend significantly more over the next 12 months than the national average, the survey found.

Payment lapses and tracking problems climb among young borrowers

29 percent of respondents under 30 report losing track when running multiple financing arrangements simultaneously. Despite this, 48 percent of the same group rate their financial knowledge as at least good, a higher share than among older respondents.

Dublin – – September 12, 2026 -- eCurrency Mint has completed a successful demonstration of its eOffline Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) solution in Africa, enabling digital currency transactions without internet or mobile network access.

eCurrency extends CBDC infrastructure to offline environments

The eOffline solution allows consumers, merchants, and government agencies to send and receive CBDC through mobile phones, smart cards, and other dedicated hardware from third-party device partners, even when connectivity is unavailable. The system has been tested across multiple use cases and user segments in the demonstration.

Rockville, Md. – September 12, 2026 -- Expert.ai has been named one of five Coolest Vendors in Gartner's Coolest Vendor Innovations in Agentic AI for Banking, Part 1 report, published September 12, 2026.

Bank customers report 90% reduction in AML false positives

Expert.ai's AI suite is already deployed at 10 top banks in Italy and by global anti-money-laundering (AML) organizations, which report more than 90% screening accuracy. Customers cite a 90% reduction in AML false positives, up to 70% time savings per alert in KYC screening, and a 40% improvement in customer satisfaction.