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Citizens sues SoFi as fights over talent, pipelines persist



Citizens Bank is suing SoFi Bank for poaching its loan officers and loan pipelines, in a new lawsuit that shows the fight for mortgage talent and business remains intense.

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The Rhode Island-based bank is accusing its fintech competitor of racketeering, for allegedly inducing over 30 LOs and other mortgage staff to breach their confidentiality and non-solicitation agreements in their departures. It’s a rare federal poaching complaint between banks in the mortgage space, as independent mortgage banks and brokerages more frequently accuse one another of raiding branches and lifting client information. 

The lawsuit was first reported by Law360.

Citizens raised an alleged violation of civil RICO, the latest mortgage player to invoke the claim against a rival that is typically reserved for organized crime. The lender described SoFi’s actions as a “nationwide campaign” that had devastating results on its operations, including in the Tri-State area. 

“Here in Connecticut, SoFi has decimated Citizens’ mortgage business and essentially eliminated its market presence,” the complaint read, alleging that employees poached from that in-state branch were responsible for $5 million in revenue in the year prior to SoFi’s actions. 

A spokesperson for Citizens declined to comment Friday, while a representative for SoFi didn’t respond to a request for comment. 

Devastating results

The suit, which doesn’t name individual employees as defendants, accuses SoFi of poaching marketing managers and other home lending professionals across nine states over the past two years. Those workers allegedly absconded with information ranging from client and loan data, to referral databases and pricing models, in violation of their employment agreements. 

The purported campaign began in 2024 when a Citizens executive vice president in its consumer lending department departed for a similar position at SoFi. The employees were allegedly lured by SoFi’s promises to expand their mortgage business. 

Citizens, which is also suing SoFi for misappropriation of its trade secrets, is seeking injunctive relief from a Connecticut federal court to prevent SoFi from using its stolen information. 

SoFi is a significant home equity loan originator and has reported billion-dollar origination volume in recent quarters, including $1.4 billion in mortgages in the second quarter, according to its earnings. Citizens, a retail and correspondent lender, doesn’t publish its specific residential mortgage volume. It ended its wholesale operations in 2023. 

Consumers and lenders have infrequently raised RICO claims against real estate companies in recent years and have seldom taken those accusations to trial. More lenders have secured settlements with rivals in trade secrets cases, although some of those cases have remained pending after years of litigation.



Canada’s Banking Regulator OFSI Confirms Tokenized Deposits Are Legally The Same As Traditional Deposits


Canada’s federal banking watchdog has given financial institutions clearer room to experiment with deposits recorded on digital ledgers. On September 10, 2026, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions published a short statement confirming that a deposit does not become a new legal product merely because it is represented as a token or transferred through distributed-ledger technology.

OSFI framed the announcement as support for innovation and competition, provided the financial system stays strong and resilient.

The regulator noted that banks and other federally regulated firms, along with their vendors, have already begun designing digitally represented deposits.

Officials said that particular use case needed extra clarity on whether such products fall within existing powers under federal financial-institution statutes.

The core message is technology-neutral.

OSFI looks at the economic and legal substance of a product, not the rails used to issue or move it.

In that view, tokenized deposits are not a separate class of liability from ordinary bank deposits.

A customer’s claim remains a claim on the issuing institution.

The method of bookkeeping or settlement does not, by itself, rewrite the nature of that claim.

That legal stance does not amount to a blanket approval or a new license.

Institutions remain fully responsible for making sure any innovative activity, including work done by third parties, complies with the law and with OSFI guidance.

The statement specifically points banks toward Guideline B-13 on technology and cyber risk and Guideline B-10 on third-party risk management.

Supervisors also expect firms to speak with their OSFI lead supervisor before launching various products and to obtain legal advice where needed.

The same day, OSFI finalized its 2027 capital and liquidity guideline for crypto-asset exposures.

Qualifying tokenized versions of traditional assets, including deposits that preserve the same legal rights and risk profile as conventional deposits, generally fall into Group 1a.

That grouping typically receives the same credit-risk treatment as the underlying non-tokenized asset.

The arrangement follows the direction set by the Basel Committee: tokenization that does not change cash-flow rights or credit exposure should not automatically trigger a harsher capital regime.

Conditions still apply.

A qualifying deposit token must remain a legally enforceable claim on the bank, redeemable at par in fiat currency, and tied to the issuer’s own creditworthiness rather than a separate reserve pool.

OSFI retains the ability to apply more conservative liquidity treatment if wallet arrangements, ledger infrastructure, or redemption mechanics introduce extra risk.

The framework also keeps tokenized bank deposits distinct from stablecoins that rely on external assets.For Canada’s banks, the combined message removes a basic legal uncertainty.

They can explore on-chain settlement, programmable payments, and shared ledger experiments without first having to argue that blockchain has created an entirely new category of deposit.

At the same time, they cannot treat the technology as a shortcut around existing prudential, operational, and consumer protection rules.

The statement is modest in length but significant in timing. Global banks and market infrastructure firms have been testing tokenized deposits for wholesale payments and atomic settlement.

Canada’s participation in international projects on tokenized finance sits in the same current. OSFI’s clarification does not prescribe a national product design.

It simply confirms that, under federal law, the deposit is still a deposit.Whether individual institutions move quickly will depend on operational readiness, interoperability across payment systems, and supervisory dialogue. The regulator has made the legal starting point clearer: substance over software.



With the Midterm Elections Coming Up, This Is the Only Cryptocurrency I’m Buying Right Now


Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, I’m looking for cryptocurrencies with a few important characteristics. They must have the full support of the White House and Wall Street, and they must not have any regulatory clouds hovering over them. This should help to mitigate any political risk from the elections.

With that as a framework, there’s one obvious cryptocurrency to buy right now. Yes, I’m talking about Bitcoin (BTC -0.81%).

Image source: Getty Images.

Support from the White House

Since January 2025, the Trump administration has shown its support for the entire crypto industry. But only one cryptocurrency — Bitcoin — has been deemed “strategic” for the nation, resulting in the creation of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. All other cryptocurrencies have been lumped into a digital asset stockpile.

Moreover, look carefully at moves made by the Trump family. Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump launched American Bitcoin Corp. (ABTC +3.61%) in March 2025, and key Trump allies have launched Bitcoin treasury companies of their own following the 2024 election.

Bitcoin Stock Quote

Today’s Change

(-0.81%) $-627.74

Current Price

$76,735.00

That leads me to think that the Trump administration will do everything in its power to prop up the price of Bitcoin. According to some, that’s exactly what happened this August, when top crypto executives met at the White House. Trump made a few pronouncements about crypto, and the price of Bitcoin promptly took off.

Support from Wall Street

Bitcoin also has Wall Street’s support, and it continues to launch new products for investors. First came the Bitcoin ETFs, then came the financial derivatives. The newest products are Bitcoin perpetual futures, which the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) approved in May.

At the same time, large institutional investors continue to ramp up their allocation to Bitcoin. The growing consensus, according to asset management giant BlackRock (BLK +1.62%), is that investors should allocate 1% to 2% of their portfolios to Bitcoin. Over time, this should boost the price of Bitcoin as it is added to more portfolios.

Limited regulatory risk

By now, just about everyone recognizes that Bitcoin is a commodity, and not a security. This has removed much — but not all — of the perceived regulatory risk of holding Bitcoin.

In contrast, just about every other major cryptocurrency still faces significant regulatory issues. Ethereum (ETH -1.99%), for example, continues to be bedeviled by concerns over staking. XRP (XRP -1.91%) is only 12 months removed from settling a long-running Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) court case that attempted to classify it as a security. Hyperliquid (HYPE -2.29%) is still operating as an offshore decentralized exchange, putting it into a legal gray area.

Realistically, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act is more important for these altcoins, since it will help to clarify their legal and regulatory status and make it easier for investors to hold them. Bitcoin, though, is relatively safe from any change of heart that politicians might have about the Clarity Act after the midterm elections.

Crypto, of course, is a notoriously volatile and speculative investment. Prices can fluctuate greatly on a weekly, daily, and even hourly basis. So I’m looking to minimize that risk as much as possible by investing in Bitcoin — a cryptocurrency with broad-based support in Washington, on Wall Street, and along Main Street.

1 साल में अपनी Financial Life बदलनी है? ये 12 Money Rules सीख लो!



1 साल में अपनी Financial Life बदलनी है? ये 12 Money Rules सीख लो!

अगर आपकी salary आती है, कुछ दिन अच्छा लगता है और फिर महीने के आखिर में account देखकर लगता है — “पैसा आखिर गया कहां?” तो यह वीडियो आपके लिए है।

Financial life बदलने के लिए आपको करोड़ों रुपये, कोई बड़ा business या overnight rich होने वाला magic formula नहीं चाहिए। आपको अगले 12 महीनों में अपनी money habits और कुछ basic rules बदलने हैं।

इस वीडियो में हम 12 ऐसे simple लेकिन powerful money rules की बात करेंगे जो आपकी saving, spending, investing, income और overall financial discipline की direction बदल सकते हैं।

क्योंकि problem हमेशा कम income नहीं होती। कई बार problem होती है — income आने के बाद हम उसके साथ क्या करते हैं।

इस वीडियो में आप जानेंगे:

✅ Salary आते ही saving कैसे decide करें
✅ 30 दिन expense tracking क्यों जरूरी है
✅ Lifestyle inflation आपकी wealth को कैसे slow करती है
✅ Emergency fund कब और क्यों बनाना चाहिए
✅ Bad debt और unnecessary EMI से कैसे बचें
✅ ऐसी skill कैसे चुनें जो आपकी income बढ़ा सके
✅ Side income का छोटा engine कैसे शुरू करें
✅ Investing को blindly follow करने की बजाय कैसे समझें
✅ Net worth track करके अपनी real financial progress कैसे देखें
✅ Social media comparison से financial decisions कैसे बचाएं
✅ Financial knowledge बढ़ाना क्यों जरूरी है
✅ Motivation से ज्यादा consistency powerful क्यों है

इस वीडियो में आपको कोई fake “जल्दी अमीर बनो” formula नहीं मिलेगा।
यहां बात होगी saving, budgeting, emergency fund, debt control, skill building, side income, investing, net worth और long-term wealth mindset की।

अगर आज आपका पैसा महीने के आखिर तक टिकता नहीं है, emergency आते ही budget हिल जाता है, या आपको लगता है कि salary बढ़ने के बाद भी wealth नहीं बन रही — तो अगले 12 महीने इन rules को seriously follow करना आपकी financial direction बदल सकता है।

क्योंकि wealth हमेशा बड़े फैसलों से नहीं बनती।
कई बार ₹500 की पहली saving, ₹1,000 की पहली investment और रोज के छोटे disciplined decisions ही बड़ी financial journey की शुरुआत होते हैं।

वीडियो को आखिर तक जरूर देखें, क्योंकि अंत में इन 12 rules को एक simple financial system में जोड़कर समझाया गया है जिसे आप अगले एक साल के लिए follow कर सकते हैं।

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We Both Have Student Loans. Does RAP Make Us Pay Twice?


The Question

My husband and I both have student loans ($48,000 for me and $52,000 for him). I applied to move to RAP last month after I got a SAVE forbearance notice. We file jointly and our combined AGI is around $118,000.

I used a calculator that showed one household payment of roughly $980. But when we each looked at our accounts, we’re each being billed close to $980. That’s almost $2,000 a month and we can’t afford that. Is that right, or did something get processed wrong? We’re considering filing separately next year but I don’t know if that fixes it.

— Danielle


Welcome to the Friday mailbag, where we take one reader question and answer it. Have one? Send it to us — details at the bottom.


The Short Answer

No, you should not be paying twice. Under RAP, a married couple filing jointly gets one payment calculated on combined income, and that payment is reduced when both spouses carry federal loans. Two full payments of $980 means something was processed wrong, and you should be looking at roughly $983 a month between you. The $983 is then supposed to be pro-rated across your loans. Since you have 48% of the balance, your payment is supposed to be $472 per month. Your husband’s payment should be $511 per month. The combined payment is $983 per month.

Here’s the guidelines from StudentAid:

RAP Payment Screenshot from StudentAid

The Full Math Breakdown

At $118,000 in combined AGI, you land in RAP’s top bracket: 10% of adjusted gross income, divided by 12. That’s $11,800 a year, or $983 a month for the household. If you claim dependents, subtract $50 per dependent from that figure. The RAP calculator will confirm it with your exact inputs.

That household payment then gets divided between the two of you according to how much of the combined balance each carries. Your $48,000 is 48% of your $100,000 total, so your share is about $472. Your husband’s $52,000 is 52%, so his is about $511. Add them together and you’re back to $983.

You didn’t say if you had kids, but the $50/mo per dependent comes off the $983, not the individual payments.

The full RAP payment rules walk through the rest of the mechanics, including the interest waiver and the $50 monthly principal match.

Why This Is Confusing

Calculating your IDR payment as a married couple is confusing because most calculators don’t do the pro-rating. You have to use your combined income, and realize the payment is your combined payment.

It’s also important to realize that the only way this pro-rating happens is if both you and your spouse are enrolled in the same student loan repayment plan. We are seeing a lot of instances where one spouse is enrolled in repayment and the other one is still in forbearance, and the pro-rating is not happening.

We are also seeing processing issues. Since most of the payment calculations are handled by business processing organizations (basically outsourced), sometimes the information does not get processed correctly. It’s really important that both you and your spouse are submitting IDR applications to leave the safe harbored forbearance, not just one of you.

Does Filing Taxes Separately Fix It?

It changes the math, but when you do this, you need to focus beyond your student loan payment and see the impact to your taxes. If your incomes are roughly even (call it $59,000 each) filing separately drops each of you into RAP’s 5% bracket. That’s about $246 a month apiece, or $492 for the household, against $983 filing jointly. On paper you save close to $500 a month.

But when you file taxes separately, you nearly always pay more in taxes. Married filing separately costs you the student loan interest deduction outright, narrows or eliminates several credits, and pushes you into less favorable tax brackets. For some couples that’s a few hundred dollars a year and the trade is obvious. For others (particularly with children or education credits in play) it wipes out all of the student loan savings and more. Our breakdown of the married filing separately math shows how to run it both ways before you commit.

They key decision here is whether your tax bill increases by $6,000 per year or not (that’s $500/mo). Your taxes only increase by $4,000, you “win” by filing separate. If they increase by $8,000, you lose by filing separate.

You May Be On The Wrong Plan Anyway

At $118,000 combined, you’re sitting right where RAP stops being the cheaper option. RAP generally wins below roughly $80,000 to $90,000 in income. Above that, IBR’s discretionary-income formula and shorter forgiveness timeline usually pull ahead. Our RAP vs. IBR comparison covers where the crossover actually falls.

Looking at your income (again, not knowing your dependents), I see your payment being $728 combined on IBR, if you’re both borrowers after 2014. I would caution, though, that if you’re “old” borrowers (meaning loans before 2014), then only Old IBR is available and that payment is higher at $1,092 per month combined.

Depending on your goals and history, the length of forgiveness timing also plays a role. IBR is 20 years for new borrowers, versus 30 years on RAP. While it’s moot if you’re going for PSLF, if you don’t see yourselves repaying the loan before that 20 year mark, this is valuable.

What To Do This Week

  1. Pull both accounts on StudentAid and validate the billed amount, the repayment plan name, and the date on each loan. You need the paper trail before you call.
  2. Confirm which plan each loan is actually on. Coming out of SAVE forbearance, we’ve seen a lot of odd things.
  3. Escalate in writing, not by phone. Submit through your servicer’s secure message system so there’s a record, state that both spouses have federal loans and filed jointly, and ask specifically for the spousal loan debt adjustment to be applied.
  4. File a complaint with the FSA Ombudsman if the servicer doesn’t correct it within a billing cycle. That escalation gets results more often than a second phone call.
  5. Model next year’s tax filing status in the spring when you file your taxes, once your payment is correct and you know what you’re actually comparing.

Where People Get This Wrong

The most common bad advice on this question is that each spouse owes a full payment based on household income, so the only fix is filing separately. That’s wrong, and it can create tax issues for couples.

The second mistake is assuming a servicer’s billed amount is definitionally correct. Through the SAVE wind-down and the RAP transition, borrowers have been finding errors at a rate nobody should be comfortable with. If the number doesn’t match the formula, the number is what’s wrong.

Send Us Your Question

Got a student loan, financial aid, or money question you can’t get a straight answer on? Send it to us and we may answer it in a future Friday mailbag.

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Editor: Colin Graves

The post We Both Have Student Loans. Does RAP Make Us Pay Twice? appeared first on The College Investor.

Spotify co-founder Martin Lorentzon says he’ll leave Sweden ‘immediately’ if a wealth tax is introduced (report)


Martin Lorentzon, who co-founded Spotify with Daniel Ek in 2006, says he would leave Sweden if the country introduces a new tax on large fortunes.

That is according to Bloomberg, which reported the Stockholm-based billionaire’s comments on September 5.

Sweden votes in a general election on Sunday (September 13), with taxation of the country’s wealthiest one of the campaign’s live issues.

“Yes, absolutely,” Lorentzon said in emailed comments to Bloomberg when asked whether he would consider moving. “I would prefer to stay, but such a tax would mean I have to leave immediately.”

According to the report, Lorentzon called on politicians to look at higher taxes on capital or dividends instead.

“It benefits no one if entrepreneurs and job creators have to sell parts of their companies to pay tax,” said Lorentzon.

“It would mean fewer companies, fewer innovations, less investment in areas such as environmental and climate technology, fewer taxpayers and fewer shared resources for welfare.

“The tax is directly counterproductive.”

“It would mean fewer companies, fewer innovations, less investment in areas such as environmental and climate technology, fewer taxpayers and fewer shared resources for welfare.”

Martin Lorentzon, Spotify (via Bloomberg)

The comments came alongside an opinion piece Lorentzon wrote for Swedish newspaper Expressen, published the same day, in which he set out his support for progressive taxation – but his opposition to an annual levy on wealth.

Lorentzon’s argument is that large fortunes tend to be held as shares in companies rather than as cash, which would leave founders selling down their own businesses to settle a tax bill.

He returned to the subject two days later in written comments to Swedish business daily Dagens Industri, reported by news agency TT on September 7.

“Today, entrepreneurs and business builders are coming here because we have a unique climate for investment, creativity and expertise,” Lorentzon wrote, in comments translated from Swedish.

“A wealth tax that is being discussed in the election campaign would drive people and investment away from here.”


Sweden’s Left Party is campaigning for a tax on billionaires, while the Green Party has put forward a separate levy on the wealthiest.

Both sit inside the four-party opposition bloc led by the Social Democrats, which is polling ahead of Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s three-party government and the Sweden Democrats, who support it in parliament.

The size of that lead is contested. In a poll published on September 7, Novus put the opposition 2.4 points clear, a gap the firm says sits within its margin of error.

A poll published the same day by Ipsos for Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter had the opposition 7.8 points ahead.

The Bloomberg Billionaires Index puts Lorentzon’s fortune at more than USD $11 billion.

A large portion of that fortune has been moving out of Spotify stock and into cash for some time.

Lorentzon sold USD $665.9 million of Spotify shares across two transactions in May 2025, taking his cash-outs across 2024 and 2025 past USD $1.2 billion at that point, according to MBW’s analysis of SEC filings.

The larger of those sales ran through Rosello Company Ltd, a Cyprus-registered holding company owned by Almatea, a Luxembourg-based firm whose sole shareholder is Lorentzon.

Daniel Ek formally handed over the chief executive role at Spotify at the start of this year, taking the title of Executive Chairman as Gustav Söderström and Alex Norström became co-CEOs.

In his memo to staff announcing that move, Ek wrote that he wanted to help build more European “supercompanies” – a theme MBW examined at the time, alongside the argument among European business leaders that the region is losing ground to the US and China.

Lorentzon’s comments concern his own tax residency rather than Spotify’s corporate base.

Sweden abolished its own, broader-based wealth tax as of January 1, 2007.Music Business Worldwide

Amazon: Save $25 When You Spend $199 on Select DEWALT Items


Save $25 When You Spend $199 on Select DEWALT Items

This article contains Amazon affiliate links.

Amazon is running a new promotion that gives shoppers $25 off when they spend $199 or more on select DEWALT items. There are currently more than 500 qualifying products.

Just add at least $199 worth of qualifying products to your cart and the $25 discount will automatically apply at checkout if your order is eligible.

SHOP NOW

Important Terms

  • Qualifying products must be sold by Amazon.com or Amazon Digital Services LLC and display the promotional offer on the product detail page.
  • Third-party sellers don’t qualify, even when the item is fulfilled by Amazon or Prime eligible.
  • The qualifying products must be purchased in a single order and shipped at the same speed to a single address.
  • Shipping charges and taxes don’t count toward the $199 requirement.
  • The offer is good while supplies last and can’t be combined with certain other promotional codes.

Guru’s Wrap-up

This works out to about 12.6% off when spending exactly $199, and it could be even better if the qualifying products are already discounted. 

 

Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases made through this article. Using links on the site for Amazon purchases is the best way you can support the site as you normally can’t earn cash back for these purchases. But, you should still check shopping portals such as Rakuten, TopCashback, RebatesMe, ShopBack and others for possible cashback. Your support is always greatly appreciated!

Data center growth yields mixed results for US housing markets


The home value gap between markets is significant. The median home value in counties without data centers stands at $174,500.

In counties with 10 or more facilities, that figure reaches $431,750, and those high-concentration markets saw values rise 95% over the past decade, compared with 64% elsewhere.

Median household income runs to approximately $89,000 in those markets, against $64,000 in counties with no data centers, while employment grew 16% from 2014 to 2024, compared with just 2% in counties with none.

NAR is careful to note these counties were already high-income, highly educated technology hubs before the recent infrastructure surge. For brokers, that distinction carries practical weight.

As data centers price home builders off America’s land, infrastructure-driven land competition can constrict housing supply regardless of what happens to home values.

Ex CIA official found with $40 million in gold bars for ‘work-related expenses’ reaches plea deal



A former CIA official found with $40 million of gold bars in his home has reached a tentative plea agreement after being charged with theft for fraudulently inflating his salary, according to court records.

A federal judge on Friday extended a deadline to formally indict defendant David J. Rush until Oct. 8, giving time for federal prosecutors and his attorney to finalize the plea deal and avoid a public trial that the parties said could involve significant litigation over classified material.

A joint court filing Thursday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Virginia and Rush’s lawyer did not outline the details of the tentative plea deal. The U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment Saturday, and Rush’s attorney did not not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Rush was charged with theft of public money in May. He was accused of fraudulently claiming 744 hours of military leave on his timecards after he was honorably discharged from the Navy in 2015 and of inflating his salary by falsely claiming degrees from Clemson University in South Carolina and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit filed in court.

That same document also revealed that investigators searched Rush’s home and seized about 300 gold bars worth more than $40 million, plus about $2 million in U.S. currency and about 35 luxury watches.

The FBI affidavit said Rush had obtained the gold bars from the U.S. government for “work-related expenses.” Rush’s attorney has said the charge against him isn’t related to the gold bars, which she described as “a sensational tidbit.”

A Justice Department attorney said during a June court proceeding that Rush wasn’t supposed to have the gold bars at his home.

Exclusive: In a new sit-down interview with Fortune, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman explains safety standards are “not at a place” to push AI capabilities much further and warns AI beyond human control is “absolutely” possible. Watch or listen here.

The Questions You Should Be Asking About the AI Bubble


There’s a new parlor game circulating global C-suites: Is there an AI capex bubble—and if so, when will it pop? As the financial press dials up estimates of total investment in data centers—from hundreds of billions to lately several trillion dollars—the fear of compute overcapacity, low or negative returns, and a recession escalates.