United States – North Dakota

Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access

North Dakota's money-transmission licensing regime is anchored in the Money Transmission Modernization Act, N.D.C.C. ch. 13-09.1, which replaced the legacy money-transmitters chapter effective with its 2023 enactment. The Act is administered by the North Dakota Department of Financial Institutions and applies to nonbank payment-institution and e-money-institution-type entities, carrying the standard multistate-model licensing conditions applicable to that category. A distinguishing feature of the North Dakota implementation is its dedicated fee schedule for virtual-currency transmitters: the greater of five hundred dollars or 0.25 percent of average USD-equivalent virtual-currency transmission volume calculated over the trailing twelve months, subject to a twenty-five-hundred-dollar cap. This fee-formula distinction confirms that virtual-currency transmission is treated as a licensed activity class within the same statutory perimeter as traditional money transmission, rather than as an unregulated or separately-carved-out activity.

The licensing framework itself did not change substantively this cycle; what confirms as material is the consolidation of the post-2023 regime as the settled operative framework, replacing any residual reliance on the repealed chapter 13-09. This is a bank-versus-nonbank distinction worth carrying explicitly: the licensing obligations described here apply to nonbank payment-institution and e-money-institution-type entities specifically, and do not touch depository institutions, which are licensed and supervised through an entirely separate banking framework.

Outlook

The licensing framework is now settled following the 2023 modernization, and the near-term outlook is one of monitoring practical administration rather than anticipating further statutory change. Watch for Department of Financial Institutions guidance clarifying application of the virtual-currency fee formula to novel transmission models, which would sharpen market-access certainty for prospective licensees.

Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access

North Dakota's licensing perimeter for money transmission and virtual-currency businesses has undergone structural modernization across two legislative cycles. SB2119, enacted in 2023, created N.D.C.C. ch. 13-09.1 by adopting the multistate Money Transmission Modernization Act model law, repealing the prior ch. 13-09 framework entirely. This is a nonbank-PI/EMI-type licensing regime -- North Dakota's money-transmitter statute governs the nonbank payment-institution and e-money-institution-equivalent population rather than bank-chartered entities, which operate under separate prudential frameworks. Under the modernized regime, the licensing renewal fee is capped at $2,500, calculated as the greater of a flat amount or a formula tied to the dollar volume of money or virtual currency transmitted in the state over the trailing twelve months ending June 30.

Building on that 2023 foundation, HB1447 in the 2025 session added a dedicated virtual-currency-kiosk sub-regime under new N.D.C.C. §§13-09.1-50 through 13-09.1-54. Kiosk operators must hold a money transmitter license specifically covering kiosk operations, meet physical security standards for kiosk placement, and comply with the fraud-warning disclosure and daily transaction-limit requirements addressed separately under Product Innovation & Market Development. This sub-regime represents a targeted licensing expansion responding to the specific risk profile of unattended virtual-currency kiosks as opposed to online exchange or custody activity.

A third and still-developing element is HB1127, effective 1 August 2025, which amended North Dakota's Money Brokers Act to potentially bring DFI-designated 'alternative financing products' within that Act's licensing scope. As of this cycle, DFI has not yet issued the administrative order identifying which specific products would be captured, leaving the practical reach of this amendment undetermined. Firms offering financing products adjacent to traditional money-broker activity should monitor for the forthcoming designation.

Taken as a whole, this is a material and structural tightening of North Dakota's licensing perimeter: a base modernization (2023), a targeted sectoral expansion for virtual-currency kiosks (2025), and a pending further expansion into alternative financing products (2025, designation pending) together indicate a state actively extending its nonbank payments-licensing architecture rather than leaving it static.

Outlook

The key event to watch is DFI's anticipated designation order under the amended Money Brokers Act, expected around Q4 2026, which will determine which alternative financing products fall within the expanded licensing scope. Separately, whether DFI issues interpretive guidance on enforcement of the kiosk sub-regime's licensing and physical-security requirements would signal how actively the new virtual-currency-kiosk licensing layer is being supervised.

Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access

North Dakota's money-transmission licensing framework rests on a 2023 restructuring: Senate Bill 2119 enacted the Money Transmission Modernization Act as NDCC ch. 13-09.1, repealing the prior ch. 13-09 money-transmitter chapter. This is the state's standing licensing architecture — a Tier-1-sourced, High-confidence structural fact drawn directly from the North Dakota Department of Financial Institutions — and it is the chapter within which this cycle's two legislative extensions operate.

Two dated developments this cycle extend that chapter's scope. House Bill 1447 (Tier-3 sourced, Elevated impact) requires cryptocurrency-kiosk and ATM operators to obtain a North Dakota money transmitter licence, deploy blockchain-analytics software, appoint a compliance officer, file quarterly reports, post fraud warnings, and cap early transactions at $2,000 per day. This is corroborated across two independent Tier-3 press sources but has not yet been confirmed against a Tier-1 ND.gov bill-status record. House Bill 1127 (Tier-3 sourced, Monitored impact) amends the Money Brokers Act, effective August 1, 2025, to define "loan" to include any Department-of-Financial-Institutions-designated "alternative financing product." Both extensions attach to the existing licence-type structure — a money transmitter license, with no exemptions listed for either — rather than creating a new licence category.

Both developments sit in the non-bank PI/EMI lane of the state's licensing architecture: crypto-kiosk operators and alternative-financing providers are captured, where captured at all, through money-transmitter and money-broker licensing rather than banking-charter supervision. No bank-prudential licensing change was identified for North Dakota this cycle; the entirety of this cycle's licensing-perimeter movement runs through the non-bank money-transmission and money-brokerage lanes. A key judgment from this cycle's tracking, assessed at High confidence and Elevated impact, is that North Dakota's licensing perimeter has expanded twice in 2025, signalling a tightening posture toward previously unlicensed or ambiguously-scoped payment-adjacent activity.

Outlook

HB 1127's practical effect depends on whether the Department of Financial Institutions exercises its discretion to designate specific alternative financing products — a step that has not yet occurred. HB 1447's practical effect depends on Tier-1 confirmation of its enacted text and effective date, which was not reached this cycle. Both remain open items for the next tracking cycle.

Conduct, Safeguarding & Financial Promotions

This cycle's federal overlay development is squarely a conduct-and-safeguarding matter for any permitted payment stablecoin issuer, North Dakota's included. Treasury, FinCEN, and OFAC have issued a joint proposed rule applying Bank Secrecy Act-equivalent AML and sanctions-compliance program obligations to permitted payment stablecoin issuers; the proposal reaches both bank-model and non-bank-model issuers, though the compliance-program design each is expected to build differs by model. The FDIC has proposed a distinct, bank-side rule addressing custody safeguarding of stablecoin reserves specifically, published in the Federal Register on 10 April 2026 with a comment period that closed 9 June 2026. Read together, the two proposals separate the AML/sanctions-program obligation, which applies broadly across issuer models, from the reserve-custody-safeguarding obligation, which is scoped specifically to bank issuers holding customer-facing reserves.

The item with the most direct bearing on North Dakota is the substantially-similar equivalence test that Treasury's rulemaking is expected to finalize. That test will determine whether a state-level stablecoin regime, such as North Dakota's, qualifies its state-supervised issuers for a sub-ten-billion-dollar state-oversight track, or whether issuers exceeding that threshold must transition to the full federal permitted-payment-stablecoin-issuer regime absent a waiver. The rule as proposed also requires that any state framework relied upon under this test must not itself impede federal compliance, meaning North Dakota's own state-level oversight design is not fully autonomous of the federal standard even where an issuer qualifies for the state track. Until the equivalence test is finalized, this is a live compliance-design uncertainty rather than a settled safeguarding requirement, and it applies to every state-qualified issuer currently operating or planning to operate under a state framework, not to North Dakota's pilot alone.

For the safeguarding dimension specifically, the FDIC's proposed custody rule is the more directly applicable instrument to a bank-model issuer such as North Dakota's state-owned bank, since it addresses how stablecoin reserves must be held rather than how transactions must be screened. The AML/sanctions program obligation under the joint Treasury/FinCEN/OFAC proposal is the parallel conduct-side requirement, and both would need to be satisfied concurrently by a bank-model state-qualified issuer once finalized. No financial-promotions-specific rule change was identified in the claims reviewed this cycle bearing on stablecoin marketing or disclosure requirements.

Outlook

Both federal proposals are still in consultation or pre-finalization stages, and the FDIC custody rule's comment period has already closed as of 9 June 2026, putting it closer to finalization than the joint AML-sanctions proposal. Watch for the finalized text of the substantially-similar equivalence test specifically, since its precise calibration will determine whether North Dakota's state-qualified-issuer track remains viable in its currently-contemplated form, and for whether the finalized custody rule imposes reserve-composition or reserve-location requirements beyond what the proposal currently contemplates.

Consumer Protection & APP Fraud

Block, Inc. agreed to a $45 million multistate settlement with 46 states resolving allegations that Cash App misled consumers about fraud protections and failed to provide adequate complaint-resolution support, with remedial terms that include live phone and chat support, marketing changes, and reimbursement-obligation commitments. The claim is entered under the nonbank_pi_emi bank-or-nonbank designation, keeping the module's standing bank-PSP versus non-bank-PI/EMI distinction intact: Cash App operates as a non-bank payment product rather than a chartered bank, and this settlement's conduct obligations attach at that non-bank layer. North Dakota is not listed among the four states excluded from the settlement, indicating probable ND participation, though no ND-specific primary source has yet confirmed the state's individual signature. The finding is distinct from the Jan-2025 $255M CFPB/48-state BSA-AML-adjacent action, a separate and earlier enforcement track; this settlement addresses fraud-protection marketing claims and complaint-handling process failures rather than anti-money-laundering program deficiencies. The module's baseline trajectory remains stable: this is a bounded, D-tier enforcement event layered onto an otherwise unchanged consumer-protection and dispute-resolution framework for North Dakota.

Outlook

The item to watch is confirmation-grade: an ND-specific Attorney General or Department of Financial Institutions release naming North Dakota among the settling states would convert this from a probable to a confirmed finding, while continued silence leaves the state's participation resting on exclusion-list inference alone. No other W10 activity -- financial-promotion, merchant-acquiring-adjacent, or otherwise -- surfaced for North Dakota this cycle.

Commercial Intelligence & Fintech

The Roughrider Coin program is this cycle's clearest discrete commercial event for North Dakota: Fiserv's digital asset platform activated October 1, 2026 with Roughrider Coin as its first live use case, following an October 2025 announcement of the partnership. The commercial structure names four parties in distinct roles: Bank of North Dakota as program sponsor, Fiserv, Inc. as the supplying technology platform, VersaBank USA, N.A. as the OCC-chartered issuing bank, and Fireblocks as the supplying tokenization infrastructure provider. No transaction value or amount was disclosed for any aspect of this arrangement.

A four-institution pilot cohort was announced October 5, 2026, expanding the commercial relationship beyond the founding four parties to include Gate City Bank, First International Bank & Trust, Capital Credit Union, and North Star Community Credit Union as pilot participants, each domiciled in North Dakota. This is a dated, discrete commercial milestone, the pilot's formal commencement, distinct from the underlying stablecoin-regime regulatory story, though the two are obviously related facts about the same underlying program.

The roughly one-year gap between the October 2025 partnership announcement and the October 1, 2026 live activation reflects the build-out period for a novel, first-of-its-kind commercial arrangement combining a state-owned bank sponsor, a nationally-chartered issuing bank, and third-party fintech infrastructure providers. This sponsor-issuer-technology-supplier template, now operational, is a specific commercial structure rather than a general industry trend, and its replication by other state-level banking entities, if any, would itself constitute a future discrete commercial event rather than evidence of an existing structural shift.

Outlook

The near-term commercial development to track is whether the pilot cohort expands beyond the four named North Dakota institutions, and whether Fiserv's digital asset platform onboards additional bank-sponsor clients using a similar structure. Any such expansion would itself be a discrete, dateable commercial event rather than a continuation of the current one, and would be captured separately as it occurs.

Commercial Intelligence & Fintech

North Dakota's principal commercial-intelligence development this cycle is the Bank of North Dakota's Roughrider Coin, a proposed bank-to-bank settlement stablecoin built on Fiserv's FIUSD platform. This is a product-release event: the North Dakota Industrial Commission approved the bank-to-bank use case in a closed-door session in March 2026, following a review that included a risk assessment and cost projections, and a September 2026 launch is currently targeted. The event status is pending-regulatory rather than launched, reflecting that the approved use case still sits ahead of its targeted go-live date. The commercial terms of the Fiserv vendor arrangement, including whether specific financial terms attach to the partnership, were not publicly disclosed as part of this development, and the amount is accordingly recorded as not publicly disclosed.

As a fintech development specifically, Roughrider Coin is notable for its scope discipline: the approved use case is bank-to-bank settlement, not a retail-facing or merchant-facing stablecoin product, which distinguishes it from a broader consumer stablecoin launch. This positions the Bank of North Dakota, a state-owned institution, as an early mover among state-qualified issuers exploring the GENIUS Act's state-oversight track, using a narrowly-scoped institutional use case as the initial deployment rather than a wider product rollout. The Fiserv partnership itself is the vendor relationship underlying the technical platform, with Fiserv's FIUSD infrastructure providing the stablecoin rails for the pilot.

No merger, acquisition, or investment/funding-round event was identified for North Dakota-domiciled payments or fintech entities this cycle; the sole commercial-intelligence development in the claims reviewed is the Roughrider Coin product release and its associated regulatory approval step.

Outlook

The September 2026 targeted launch is the marker to track for this development converting from a pending-regulatory product release into an operating one. Because the underlying use case still requires alignment with the federal GENIUS Act rulemaking track, the practical launch timeline is not fully within North Dakota's own control; a delay in the federal rulemaking's finalization could plausibly affect whether the September 2026 target holds.