Workforce Shrinks by 720K; SoFi Launches SMB Loans; Open Standard Debuts

Payrolls up by just 57,000 in June, as 720,000 leave the workforce. EagleBank settles BSA allegations. SoFi launches SMB loans. Payward completes Reap acquisition. Airwallex lands $320Mn Series H. JPMC and NPCI partner. Ondo launches tokenized S&P 500 ETF. BNY expands relationship with Circle. Open Standard debuts.

We're excited to announce our expanded partnership with Stripe to help power card issuing capabilities for agentic commerce. This enables Stripe to offer businesses a secure, compliant way for agents to pay with cards on behalf of verified users. Read the full press release here.

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720,000 Left the Labor Force in June

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its June jobs numbers. Total non-farm payrolls added 57,000 jobs in June, significantly lower than both the 129,000 roles added in May and the 115,000 consensus estimate for June. The unemployment rate ticked down slightly, 4.2%. However, the drop in the unemployment rate was primarily driven by people who have given up on looking for work and thus are no longer included in the metric. The labor force participation rate, which measures the share of working-age adults who are employed or looking for work, dropped to 61.5%. That marks the lowest rate of labor force participation since March 2021, early during the pandemic. Excluding the COVID era, the current labor force participation rate is the lowest since the mid-1970s. To put a specific number to it, some 720,000 working-age adults left the labor force in June alone, or more than 12 times the increase in the non-farm payrolls number.

Meanwhile, consumer confidence numbers ticked up slightly in June. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index increased by 0.6 points to 91.2, a slight increase from May’s downwardly revised 90.6.

EagleBank Settles BSA Allegations

Maryland-based EagleBank has reached an agreement with the Department of Justice to resolve alleged Bank Secrecy Act violations, the DOJ said last week. The DOJ alleged that EagleBank knowingly allowed customers to engage in a check kiting scheme, a type of fraud that takes advantage of the delay between when a check is deposited and when funds settle and clear. Despite certain customers being identified as high risk and having multiple suspicious activity reports filed, their accounts remained open, even as compliance personnel advocated for their closures, the DOJ said.

Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva commented on the case, saying, “For more than a decade, EagleBank knowingly allowed favored clients to operate a check kiting scheme, even as compliance personnel repeatedly tried to stop it. Financial institutions are the first line of defense against financial crimes and must be gatekeepers, not gateways, for criminal activity. As this resolution makes clear, when banks deliberately allow unlawful conduct to persist, the Criminal Division will ensure they are held accountable.”

SoFi Launches SMB Loans

SoFi is expanding into the small business market. The bank began offering small business loans of up to $250,000, the company announced last week. According to SoFi’s news release, members can check if they are eligible “in minutes,” and, if approved, access funds as soon as the following day. The fixed-payment loans carry terms that range from 6 to 24 months and have no application fee, origination fee, or prepayment penalty. SoFi CEO Anthony Noto commented on the product launch, saying, “For many of our members, their financial lives do not stop at personal goals, they also include the businesses they are building. With SoFi Small Business Loans, we are expanding our ability to serve members in more of the moments that matter, giving them access to business financing through the same digital-first platform they already use to manage their personal finances.”

Payward Completes Reap Acquisition

Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, has completed its $600Mn acquisition of crypto card issuing startup Reap. The sale of Reap, which CRB Securities advised on, was initially announced in May. The $600Mn deal size includes contingent earn outs and values Payward’s total equity at about $20Bn. Payward, which is seeking a national trust bank charter from the OCC, has described its acquisition of Reap as complementing its existing infrastructure and vision for digital assets. Payward and Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi commented on the closing of the deal, saying, “We are building the rails for an open, global financial system, where stablecoins are the settlement medium and tokenized assets are the native collateral underneath every transaction.” Reap will continue to operate as an independent brand within Payward, the companies have said. CRB Securities, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of CRB Group and an affiliate of Cross River Bank, served as financial advisor to Reap Technologies Holdings Limited in its majority sale to Payward, Inc.

Airwallex Lands $320Mn Series H

Australia-based Airwallex announced it has raised $320Mn at an $11Bn valuation. The Series H round was New York-based VC Addition, with participation from Hummingbird, QED, T. Rowe Price, Amex Ventures, and others. Airwallex operates a multi-currency, cross-border banking platform that holds more than 85 licenses across the jurisdictions in which it operates. Airwallex saw its valuation jump nearly 40% vs. just six months ago, powered by revenue that is up 74% year over year and annualized transaction volume that has more than doubled. Airwallex intends to use the funding to continue to develop its offering, including in the nascent areas of autonomous finance and agentic commerce, as well as to continue its geographic expansion.

JPMC Partners with National Payments Corporation of India

JPMorgan Chase is partnering with the National Payments Corporation of India to power real-time currency conversion and cross-border payments. The partnership will leverage India’s unified payments interface, developed and operated by NPCI. UPI-based cross-border payments are already live across the UAE, Singapore, Qatar, Nepal, Bhutan, Mauritius, France, Sri Lanka, and Cambodia. Integrating JPMC’s foreign exchange and API capabilities will support end-to-end real-time transactions. Head of India Payments, JPMorgan Payments, Guhaprasath Rajagopal commented on the launch, saying, “This collaboration reduces friction in cross-border payments and connects clients to UPI’s expanding reach, while pairing it with our real-time FX capabilities and API-based integration. We’re focused on helping clients deliver better customer experiences with greater transparency, scale and control across currencies and corridors.”

Ondo Launches Tokenized S&P 500 ETF

Tokenized asset infrastructure platform Ondo announced the launch of blockchain-based versions of an S&P 500 ETF offered by BlockRock (IVV) and shares of memory and storage manufacturer Micron. Ondo’s approach is designed to operate within the existing U.S. securities law and is aligned with the Securities and Exchange Commission’s staff statement on third-party tokenized securities, the company said. Ondo leverages transfer agent Oasis Pro, which it acquired last year, to tokenize securities on the Ethereum blockchain. The offering is, however, not yet available to U.S. investors. Still, the launch demonstrates that tokenized securities can operate within the existing U.S. framework. Ondo CEO Ian De Bode commented on the milestone, saying, “Ondo has built the regulatory, product, and service infrastructure to support all major models within the United States.”

BNY Expands Relationship with Circle

BNY is expanding its relationship with USDC-issuer Circle, the companies announced last week. The two will expand support for institutional-grade stablecoin enablement services. Circle’s USDC will be the first stablecoin on BNY’s Digital Asset Custody platform, enabling the bank’s clients to mint (create), burn (redeem/destroy), store, and transfer USDC. The new capabilities build on BNY’s existing role as the primary custodian for the reserves backing USDC. BNY has said that it intends to expand the platform’s support to include additional stablecoin issuers and digital cash workflows over time. BNY chief product and innovation officer Carolyn Weinberg commented on the expanded relationship, saying, “As digital assets become increasingly integrated into financial markets, institutions need infrastructure that seamlessly works across traditional and blockchain-based systems. With the addition of our enhanced stablecoin enablement capabilities, we’re expanding the ways clients can move value with the operational scale, trust and resiliency they expect from BNY.”

Open Standard Debuts

Open Standard, a new 140-member consortium that Cross River is proud to be a part of and includes a who’s who of banking, payments, fintech, and crypto/stablecoins debuted last week. The coalition is developing a new USD-pegged stablecoin, OpenUSD, which, it says, will launch later this year. Open Standard has said it will enable businesses to mint and redeem OpenUSD without any costs or limits on volume. Yield earned on reserve assets, less a management fee to cover the consortium’s operational costs, will be shared among the member firms. Zach Abrams, cofounder and CEO of Stripe-subsidiary Bridge, will also act as founding CEO of Open Standard. While the effort boasts a large and varied list of members at launch, it remains to be seen to how involved any individual company may be, particularly where economic interests may diverge.