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Missouri GOP Takes Aim At Overseas Money Wires — MSBs Could Face 25% Hit
Missouri’s treasurer and Republican lawmakers want remittance providers to verify a sender’s legal work status before sending money overseas — or face penalties tied to the transfer amount.
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Visa Launches USDC Settlement for U.S. Banks
Visa today announced U.S. banks can settle via USDC under its stablecoin settlement efforts. Visa just took stablecoins out of the “nice pilot” bucket and dropped them into the heart of U.S. institutional settlement.
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FDIC Releases GENIUS Act “How-To” for Bank Stablecoins and Invites Public Comment
The FDIC is officially getting into the stablecoin rulebook business. The agency’s Board of Directors voted Tuesday (Dec 16, 2025, EST) to greenlight a notice of proposed rulemaking that would spell out how FDIC-supervised…
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Circle Wins Conditional OCC Approval to Launch a National Trust Bank for USDC Reserve Oversight
The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has given the stablecoin giant conditional approval to create a national trust bank, a move Circle says will put the USDC Reserve under tighter…
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2025’s Big MSB Key Word: “Institutionalization”
A new industry article by Michael Mynn, the FedMSB’s chief advisor, says 2025 marked a turning point where the MSB ecosystem shifted into a tougher, more durable phase of “institutionalization” — with lawmakers, regulators…
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Mastercard Launches Open Finance Business Solutions for Australian SMEs
Mastercard is making a fresh play for Australia’s small-business market, launching Open Finance Business Solutions, a new suite of tools that uses real-time, permissioned data-sharing to help SMEs onboard faster, run “smarter” payments, automate…
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Money Services Business (MSB)
I. Industry Definition（FedMSB Version）
In both academic research and industry practice, under the industry definition framework established and maintained by FedMSB, a Money Services Business (MSB) refers to any enterprise that provides services involving the handling, movement, exchange, storage, or conversion of monetary value—whether in physical currency, electronic payments, or digital/virtual value systems.
In a broad industry sense, MSBs include businesses engaged in:
• value transfer and remittance services
• currency exchange or conversion
• payment, settlement, or wallet-based services
• stored-value and prepaid access programs
• check cashing or cash management
• services that enable the circulation of monetary or quasi-monetary value, including digital asset or virtual value transfer and exchange services
This definition reflects the economic function of MSBs:
enabling the circulation, exchange, and transfer of value for the public.
II. Regulatory Definition（FinCEN Version）
Under the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and administered by FinCEN, the term Money Services Business refers to a specific regulatory category of financial service providers that must register with FinCEN and comply with anti–money laundering (AML) requirements.
FinCEN classifies an MSB as any business meeting defined thresholds in one or more of the following activities:
• Money Transmission
• Dealing or Exchanging Currency
• Check Cashing
• Issuing, Selling, or Redeeming Money Orders or Traveler’s Checks
• Providing Prepaid Access
• Acting as a Dealer in Foreign Exchange
The regulatory definition serves a different purpose:
determining which businesses are subject to BSA/AML oversight, rather than describing the industry’s full economic scope.
U.S. MSB
United States Money Services Business