Michael Roddan

Banking reporter @theinformation in San Francisco
☏/Telegram/WhatsApp/Signal [phone]
Former national corro @FinancialReview and roustabout @australian

[Sylvia Varnham O’Regan @SylviaVarnham]

Who is Sergey Brin's 'MAGA girlfriend?' A story about fame, money and the reality TV nature of Trumpworld politics. My latest for @VanityFair: https://t.co/rWlD50gOC6

[Aaron Tilley @aatilley]

Latest from me: Ahead of Tim Cook's last day as CEO next week, the company held a small party for him last night, where OneRepublic played and he acknowledged a partner named Mike
https://t.co/3vIH9gSW58

[Michael Roddan @MichaelRoddan]

😎ahem 😎

https://t.co/Cn2xgqwjue

[Iain Martin @_IainMartin]

TikTok is investigating a potential issue relating to sanctions compliance with Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) and Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI). Similar voluntary reports have been made to other regulators on a preliminary basis.
What is this?

[Cory Weinberg @coryweinberg]

NEWS: Cami Clark is something like the first lady of Anthropic. But she has had no public profile.

We traced her winding road trying to make it and build social connections in tech.

It's one of the most fascinating untold stories of anyone close to the center of AI.

https://t.co/iEZFuy8EDr

[Nick Wingfield @nickwingfield]

For those reading the @OpenAI blog post on its suit with Apple, here's @aatilley's story from yesterday on a wild security lapse in Apple's offboarding process for employees. https://t.co/WWzAnrlluR

[Yueqi Yang @Yueqi_Yang]

Jamie Dimon and Brian Armstrong are publicly sparring over a crypto bill, but the two companies have a long history of various partnerships in banking, payments, and even lending.

Some of these partnerships -- including allowing JPMorgan Chase customers to directly link their bank accounts and credit card points to Coinbase -- have been subject to delays, we found.

A look into Coinbase and JPMorgan's relationships by @MichaelRoddan and me:
https://t.co/WCGau9l7C8 1/

[Jason Mikula @mikulaja]

🚨🚨SCOOP: Trump-linked fintech tied to "no KYC" crypto card programs, including one marketed for Iran sanctions evasion. Issuing partners have included Sutton Bank, Marqeta:

You’ve probably heard of World Liberty Financial, the crypto platform launched by then-candidate Trump shortly before the 2024 election.

You may have even heard of ALT5 Sigma — recently rebranded as AI Financial Corporation — into which World Liberty led a purported $1.5 billion investment in 2025.

But you probably have not heard of ALT5 subsidiary MSwipe, a Quebec-based middleware-style payment card issuing platform, which also operates under the name Stradacarte.

MSwipe, according to its own documentation and staff, offers so-called “no KYC” cards, ostensibly to be used for media buying — purchasing ads on popular platforms like Google and Facebook/Instagram, as well as across the web and in mobile apps through demand side platforms.

But such cards can also be exploited by bad actors for illicit uses, including paying for ads to promote scams or counterfeit goods, as well as use for money laundering and sanctions evasion.

MSwipe/Stradacarte works with 14 banks and program managers, one of its staffers told me, which appear to have included:

-Wex, most commonly known for its fleet card offerings, though the company, which has a banking subsidiary, also operates a virtual card issuing service marketed to fintechs;

-Marqeta, a card issuing platform popular with fintechs that partners closely with Sutton Bank. Sutton Bank confirmed it has worked with MSwipe, but stated that it was “a past relationship” that “ended in Q1 of 2026”;

-Corpay, previously known as Fintwist, which issues payroll cards and prepaid cards through its relationships with Regions Bank and Republic Bank & Trust;

-ConnexPay, a B2B payments platform that supports virtual card issuing, including in GBP and EUR, through its relationships with The Central Trust Bank and MVB Bank;

-and ViaCarte, a Panama- and Bahamas-based principal member of Visa and Mastercard that offers programmatic virtual card issuance.

Directly asked if KYC is required for media buying use cases — paying for ads on Google, Facebook, etc. — a Stradacarte staffer told me, “Because it is a media buy program, we don’t need to collect KYC for individual cardholders, so you can essentially just keep reusing the same cardholder name and address for all the cards you’re creating, if you want to. You just have to populate the cells with any information you want, and the card will work, as long as when you’re doing the transaction it matches the information you inputted correctly.”

Multiple sources told Fintech Business Weekly that various “no KYC” crypto card programs have leveraged MSwipe/Stradacarte to power their offerings, including Alphaspace and Bitsika.

Much more on this in Sunday's Fintech Business Weekly.

[Michael Roddan @MichaelRoddan]

From the website of Kentland Federal Savings and Loan Association, the smallest bank in the U.S., which just collapsed

[FDIC @FDICgov]

Kentland Federal Savings and Loan Association of Kentland, Ind. was closed today by the @USOCC, which appointed FDIC as receiver. Kentland Bank of Kentland, Ind. purchased substantially all assets and assumed all deposits of the failed institution.

https://t.co/HG32CbAf9v

[Leo Schwartz @leomschwartz]

Scoop: In early June, the Justice Department sent out a memo warning its attorneys working on crypto cases that they should expect less cooperation from Binance.

This comes as Binance is actively negotiating a formal end to its DOJ monitorship, implemented after the landmark 2023 criminal case against the leading crypto exchange, which has effectively been paused over the past year.

In a statement, a Binance spokesperson denied to me that that the company is changing how it's cooperating with U.S. law enforcement.

Also from the article:

- The Treasury monitorship is still active
- In June, the Treasury-appointed monitor, Sharon Cohen Levin, hosted a town hall with Binance's compliance staff, co-CEO Richard Teng, and Binance's new head of regulatory adherence, Andrew Stemmer

[Cory Weinberg @coryweinberg]

So, inhale: a Bay Area startup founded by Chinese immigrants, whose scooters touched off a micromobility VC bubble and reeled in cash from the most famous "software-eats-the-world" VC firm, nearly died in the pandemic, got bailed out by the world's biggest ride-hailing company, then took money from a petrostate — all to run a green-tech business whose flagship market is London, now led by an openly gay, Taiwanese former Obama White House aide who's taking it public, finally cashing out one of America's largest mutual funds.

[Yueqi Yang @Yueqi_Yang]

Exclusive: Kalshi has surpassed $2 billion in annualized revenue and has held early, informal talks with investment banks about an IPO, according to sources
https://t.co/lGiM0FRSY4

[Michael Roddan @MichaelRoddan]

🎱 NEW 🎱

Along with insider trading, state lawsuits, national bans and anti-gambling critics, Polymarket and Kalshi are grappling with another potentially costly problem: fraud rings and crooks taking advantage of their payments systems.

https://t.co/GNiNmOVMBD

[Maria Heeter @HeeterMaria]

This story has everything: a Beverly Hills mansion 🔑, a Hollywood movie 🎬, accusations of "organized crime"-like behavior, and my childhood favorite comic books: Archie Comics.

Inside the massive, debt-fueled fight for the future of Archie for @9finHQ: https://t.co/l7S5GIOaQF

[Michael Roddan @MichaelRoddan]

🇷🇺 NEW 🇷🇺

In Russia or Iran, making bets on Polymarket isn’t permitted by the prediction market’s rules. But that hasn't stopped traders or influencers from sending thousands of compatriots to the site.

Now, Polymarket is coaxing some users to self-ID

https://t.co/lULoBX2m5D

[Michael Roddan @MichaelRoddan]

🇷🇺 NEW 🇷🇺

In Russia or Iran, making bets on Polymarket isn’t permitted by the prediction market’s rules. But that hasn't stopped traders or influencers from sending thousands of compatriots to the site.

Now, Polymarket is coaxing some users to self-ID

https://t.co/lULoBX2m5D

[Yueqi Yang @Yueqi_Yang]

I wrote about crypto’s arrival and influence in DC --
through the lens of a building on 11th and F street, less than a mile away from the White House, that has become a de facto crypto command center in Washington. 1/
https://t.co/cowxhz7ng1

[Eli M. Rosenberg @emrosenberg]

This week, I profiled Alexander Lurie — real estate agent at the center of SF's crazed housing rush right now, and @DanielLurie's brother

via @theinformation
https://t.co/DkB4r31NFQ

[Yueqi Yang @Yueqi_Yang]

The OCC announced an enforcement action against Community Federal Savings Bank, a small fintech-friendly bank in Queens, NY, for deficiencies in anti-money laundering compliance program.

The concerns are "largely unrelated" to the bank's crypto clients, the OCC says https://t.co/U4d4Orf2L3

Below is @MichaelRoddan's deep dive in the bank's business practices:

[Michael Roddan @MichaelRoddan]

🚔Update🚔

The OCC today announced an action against CFSB over deficiencies in its anti-money laundering and compliance controls. One of the few such actions announced under the Trump admin.

Read my 2024 yarn for my original squiz at the bank, which had become somewhat of a fintech lender of last resort

https://t.co/AWu0e1qVTQ

[Michael Roddan @MichaelRoddan]

🚨News🚨

An obscure NY bank is wading into the fintech sector as many others leave. I took a look at CFSB, which is opening itself to risks of becoming a vector for fraud schemes. The bank's owners are also accused of running some ...unusual... operations https://t.co/7YnmN6hnmQ