Two regulators, two directions
In the same few weeks of May 2026, the United States and India moved their fintech rulebooks in opposite directions. Washington told regulators to get out of the way. New Delhi asked whether its most successful payment rail needs to slow down.
On May 19, President Trump signed an executive order titled "Integrating Financial Technology Innovation Into Regulatory Frameworks." It directs federal financial regulators, including the OCC, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC, to review existing rules, guidance and application processes within 90 days and identify anything that blocks non-bank fintech firms from partnering with insured depository institutions, credit unions and broker-dealers (White House fact sheet). The order defines "fintech firm" broadly enough to cover payment processors, digital asset companies and blockchain-based service providers, and it names direct participants in real-time payment networks as a category regulators should specifically examine (Consumer Finance Monitor).
The order does not rewrite any statute on its own. It is an instruction to agencies to find and remove friction, with a report due back inside three months. But it lands on top of a chartering push that was already moving. The OCC finalized amendments to its national bank chartering rule on March 2, confirming that national trust banks can engage in non-fiduciary custody and safekeeping activities, a change that widens the lane for crypto-adjacent firms seeking a federal charter rather than a patchwork of state licenses (Federal Register).
India is asking the opposite question
RBI published a discussion paper on April 9 titled "Exploring Safeguards in Digital Payments to Curb Frauds." Its most consequential proposal: a mandatory hold of up to one hour on account-to-account transfers above Rs 10,000, including UPI payments to a new payee. The sender's account would be debited immediately, but the recipient would not see the money land until the hold clears, giving a victim time to flag a suspicious transfer before it is unrecoverable (Business Standard).
The paper puts a number behind the urgency. RBI's own FY2024-25 annual report recorded over 13,500 digital payment fraud cases, more than half of all reported banking fraud that year, with losses in the hundreds of crores of rupees. Other options on the table in the same paper include a universal "kill switch" to freeze a payment instantly, tighter approval flows for accounts already flagged as suspicious, and a "trusted person" co-approval mechanism for accounts the bank considers vulnerable to scams.
Comments on the discussion paper closed May 8. By late May, banks and fintech firms were pushing back publicly. Industry executives told reporters that a blanket one-hour delay on payments above Rs 10,000 would hit time-sensitive transfers, including tax payments, vendor payouts and working capital movements between businesses, and that it could blunt UPI's core advantage over card rails and older transfer methods: instant settlement (Storyboard18). Merchant payments were floated as a likely exemption in any final rule, and some fintech players argued a risk-scored, transaction-level flagging system would catch fraud without slowing every transfer above the threshold. As of late May, RBI had not notified a final rule, and no delay was in effect.
Why the split makes sense
The two moves are not contradictory so much as a reflection of where each market actually is. The US executive order is aimed at fintechs still trying to get inside the regulated banking perimeter at all, where the complaint has been that sponsor-bank partnerships and state-by-state licensing slow down basic products like deposit accounts and card issuing. The policy problem is access.
India's problem is the opposite. UPI already moves tens of billions of transactions a month through a rail that settles instantly and free of charge to the consumer. The policy problem there is what happens after a fraud has already succeeded on a system built for speed. A one-hour hold does not restrict who can build on UPI. It restricts how fast money can move once a scam has already tricked someone into authorizing a transfer, a distinction that has been largely lost in some coverage that frames this as India cooling on fintech generally.
What to watch
Two dates matter more than headlines. The US executive order gives regulators 90 days from May 19 to report back with specific rule changes, putting a mid-August deadline on the agencies named in the order. RBI has given no public timeline for a final rule beyond noting it will review the comment period feedback, and the size of the pushback from banks and payment companies suggests the eventual rule, if one is issued at all, will look narrower than the discussion paper's broadest option.
Neither move changes anything for consumers yet. Both are proposals and directives, not law. The gap worth tracking is whether the US ends up with a fintech sector that has easier bank-partnership access at the same time India's flagship payment rail gets its first real friction layer since launch.
Sources: White House Fact Sheet · Consumer Finance Monitor · Federal Register - National Bank Chartering · Business Standard - RBI UPI Delay Proposal · Storyboard18 - Bankers on RBI UPI Proposal