United States — Virginia (US-VA)

Updated 5 Jul 2026Schema world-payments-v1Baseline wpm-2026-07-08

Lead Signal

Virginia's 2025 overhaul of the Money Transmitters Act crosses into force this cycle, restructuring licensing economics for every non-bank money transmitter operating in the Commonwealth. The amendment lowers the starting net-worth minimum to $100,000, resets the surety-bond formula to a $100,000-$1M band, and revises permissible-investment obligations, superseding the prior flat $200,000 net-worth minimum, effective July 1, 2026. The change lands atop a licensing architecture that has long been unusually consolidated: Virginia requires money transmission and money order selling to be licensed exclusively under the Virginia Money Transmitters Act (Title 6.2, Chapter 19), administered by the Bureau of Financial Institutions within the State Corporation Commission via NMLS, with no separate EMI or PPI charter available. Because safeguarding of customer funds in Virginia rests on a surety bond rather than a segregation or trust model, and Virginia does not separately mandate liability insurance as a licensing prerequisite, the July 1 recalibration of bond and net-worth thresholds resets the primary consumer-protection buffer for the Commonwealth's non-bank payments sector at the same moment entry costs for new licensees are eased.

Outlook

Three near-term dates anchor the forward calendar: the Money Transmitters Act overhaul and the HB 798 crypto-escheat law both take effect July 1, 2026, and GENIUS Act implementing regulations are due July 18, 2026. Two items remain unresolved and warrant continued monitoring: the final enacted or vetoed status of SB 1252, a proposed 12% interest-rate cap with anti-evasion provisions targeting bank-fintech and earned-wage-access lending partnerships introduced in January 2025, and the durability of the Capital One-Discover integration as workforce reductions continue at the former Discover headquarters. Absent a dedicated state APP-fraud reimbursement scheme or a payments-specific operational-resilience regime, Virginia consumers and infrastructure remain reliant on federal Regulation E and on the physical resilience of the PJM grid serving the Loudoun County data-center cluster, respectively, as the Commonwealth's principal residual exposures.

Confidence
High
Forward deadlines
3

Other Developments

Two other Virginia developments reached effective or enforceable status either side of this cycle. SB 1212, codified at Virginia Code § 59.1-608, requires clear and conspicuous total-price disclosure of all mandatory fees and card surcharges in consumer transactions, effective July 1, 2025, and is enforced as a Virginia Consumer Protection Act violation carrying civil penalties and a private right of action for damages. That disclosure duty sits atop the existing card-network surcharge caps of 3% for Visa and 4% for Mastercard, and Virginia imposes no independent state-level surcharge cap of its own, while debit-card surcharging remains illegal nationwide. Separately, HB 798 brings dormant digital assets into Virginia's unclaimed-property escheat regime: cryptocurrency inactive for five years or more is presumed abandoned and must be transferred in-kind to state custody, where it must be held at least one year before any liquidation, effective July 1, 2026. That state-level custody precedent sits against a federal backdrop in which the GENIUS Act establishes the primary regulatory framework for any Virginia-domiciled or Virginia-serving payment-stablecoin issuer, delegating approval to federal banking agencies or qualified state regulators, with implementing regulations generally required by July 18, 2026; Virginia itself has no state-qualified stablecoin-issuer pathway. On the commercial side, Capital One Financial Corp's $35.3 billion acquisition of Discover Financial Services has closed, making the McLean-headquartered lender the largest US credit-card issuer and the sixth-largest US bank, with post-merger integration continuing into 2026 through further workforce reductions at Discover's former Riverwoods headquarters. In litigation, the Supreme Court of Virginia held in Groundworks Operations LLC v. Campbell that the Virginia Wage Payment Act's protections do not extend to commissions, narrowing the statute's reach for payroll-adjacent payment disputes.

Cross-Monitor Connections

Virginia's money transmitter licensees must register as Money Services Businesses with FinCEN via BSA e-filing and maintain an independently reviewed AML/BSA programme as a precondition of state licensing, but no Virginia-specific Sentinel.gi payments-context feed entry was located this cycle; the illicit-finance dimension of that federal overlay is accordingly routed to the Financial Integrity Monitor rather than analysed here. Separately, the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond's operation of FedNow, national ACH processing, and Fifth District Treasury and master-account settlement services gives Virginia-domiciled institutions structural, direct access to core US settlement infrastructure that in most other jurisdictions runs through correspondent-banking intermediation — a bank-versus-non-bank access asymmetry worth tracking as Virginia's non-bank licensing population grows under the softened 2025 entry thresholds.

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Standing baseline position per module · click a card to expand its full sub-brief

Domains

14 regulatory modules · click to expand the full sub-brief
W1a

Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access

Confirmed

Virginia requires money transmission and money order selling to be licensed exclusively under the Virginia Money Transmitters Act, Title 6.2, Chapter 19 of the Code of Virginia, administered by the Bureau of Financial Institutions within the State Corporation Commission via the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System, and the Commonwealth maintains no separate electronic-money-institution or prepaid-instrument charter for non-bank payments activity.

W1b

Conduct, Safeguarding & Promotions

Confirmed

Virginia's safeguarding of money-transmission customer funds rests on a surety bond rather than a segregation or trust model, compensating the public if a licensee fails to comply, and the Commonwealth does not separately mandate liability insurance as a licensing prerequisite.

W2

Stablecoins & Digital Money

High

Virginia's HB 798 brings dormant digital assets into the Commonwealth's unclaimed-property escheat regime: cryptocurrency inactive for five years or more is presumed abandoned and must be transferred in-kind to state custody, where it must be held at least one year before any liquidation, effective July 1, 2026.

W6

Industry Structure & Commercial

High

Capital One Financial Corp, headquartered in McLean, closed its $35.3 billion acquisition of Discover Financial Services this cycle, making Capital One the largest US credit-card issuer and the sixth-largest US bank, and reshaping the industry structure around which Virginia's commercial payments footprint is anchored alongside the Richmond Fed.

W13

Commercial Intelligence (M&A, Investment & Product)

Assessed

The dominant trailing-12-month commercial event tied to Virginia is Capital One Financial Corp's completed $35.3 billion acquisition of Discover Financial Services, a disclosed-value deal forming the largest US credit-card issuer and the nation's sixth-largest bank.

W3

Operational Resilience & Critical Infrastructure

Assessed

Virginia has no payments-specific operational-resilience regime analogous to the EU's DORA, so the closest identified proxy is physical: Loudoun County's 'Data Center Alley' concentrates 143 or more data centers whose grid dependency exposes payments-adjacent digital infrastructure to concentration risk, illustrated by a July 2024 near-blackout of 1.5 gigawatts that revealed structural mismatch with aging PJM transmission infrastructure.

+ 8 more domains — W4 Scheme & Network Compliance, W5 Payment Corridor Dynamics, W7 Legal & Litigation, W8 Merchant Acquiring & Risk, W9 Product Innovation & Market Development, W10 Consumer Protection & APP Fraud, W11 AML/CFT & Financial Crime, W12 Correspondent Banking, Settlement & Access.
Full per-domain detail — all 14 modules

W1aConfirmedLicensing, Authorisation & Market Access

see this theme across all jurisdictions →6 claims

Virginia regulates money transmission and money order selling exclusively under Title 6.2, Chapter 19 (Virginia Money Transmitters Act), administered by BFI/SCC via NMLS; no separate EMI/PPI charter. A 2025 legislative overhaul (effective July 1, 2026) restructures net-worth, bond and permissible-investment requirements.

No periodic updates yet · baseline brief is current.

Read the full sub-brief

Licensing, Authorisation & Market Access

Virginia requires money transmission and money order selling to be licensed exclusively under the Virginia Money Transmitters Act, Title 6.2, Chapter 19 of the Code of Virginia, administered by the Bureau of Financial Institutions within the State Corporation Commission via the Nationwide Multistate Licensing System, and the Commonwealth maintains no separate electronic-money-institution or prepaid-instrument charter for non-bank payments activity. A 2025 legislative overhaul of that Act restructures the licensing economics for every existing and prospective licensee, lowering the starting net-worth minimum to $100,000, resetting the surety-bond formula to a band of $100,000 to $1 million, and revising permissible-investment obligations, superseding the prior flat $200,000 net-worth minimum, with the new regime effective July 1, 2026.

Outlook

With the overhaul now in force, licensing costs for new non-bank entrants are lower at the point of entry even as the bond formula scales with transmitted-funds volume, a combination that merits tracking for its effect on Virginia's non-bank licensee population over the coming reporting cycles.

W1aLicensing, Authorisation & Market AccessConfirmed
Virginia regulates money transmission and money order selling exclusively under Title 6.2, Chapter 19 (Virginia Money Transmitters Act), administered by BFI/SCC via NMLS; no separate EMI/PPI charter. A 2025 legislative overhaul (effective July 1, 2026) restructures net-worth, bond and permissible-investment requirements.
all · compliance · analyst · board
Evidence 6 claims ›

W1bConfirmedConduct, Safeguarding & Promotions

see this theme across all jurisdictions →5 claims

Virginia has no dedicated e-money safeguarding regime; consumer protection runs through the surety bond mechanism plus VCPA enforcement. A mandatory-fee/surcharge disclosure statute (SB 1212) took effect July 1, 2025.

No periodic updates yet · baseline brief is current.

Read the full sub-brief

Conduct, Safeguarding & Financial Promotions

Virginia's safeguarding of money-transmission customer funds rests on a surety bond rather than a segregation or trust model, compensating the public if a licensee fails to comply, and the Commonwealth does not separately mandate liability insurance as a licensing prerequisite. Separately, Virginia Code § 59.1-608 (enacted via SB 1212) requires clear and conspicuous total-price disclosure of all mandatory fees and card surcharges in consumer transactions, effective July 1, 2025, enforced as a Virginia Consumer Protection Act violation carrying civil penalties and a private right of action for damages.

Outlook

The absence of a segregation or trust requirement, combined with a private right of action now attached to fee-disclosure violations under SB 1212, makes Virginia's conduct regime one to watch as enforcement activity accumulates under the new total-price disclosure standard.

W1bConduct, Safeguarding & PromotionsConfirmed
Virginia has no dedicated e-money safeguarding regime; consumer protection runs through the surety bond mechanism plus VCPA enforcement. A mandatory-fee/surcharge disclosure statute (SB 1212) took effect July 1, 2025.
all · compliance · analyst · board
Evidence 5 claims ›

W2HighStablecoins & Digital Money

see this theme across all jurisdictions →5 claims

Virginia has no bespoke stablecoin-issuer licensing regime; digital-asset activity is governed by the federal GENIUS Act framework and Virginia's HB 798 unclaimed-property update covering digital assets, effective July 1, 2026.

No periodic updates yet · baseline brief is current.

Read the full sub-brief

Stablecoins & Digital Money

Virginia's HB 798 brings dormant digital assets into the Commonwealth's unclaimed-property escheat regime: cryptocurrency inactive for five years or more is presumed abandoned and must be transferred in-kind to state custody, where it must be held at least one year before any liquidation, effective July 1, 2026. That state-level action sits against a federal backdrop in which the GENIUS Act establishes the primary regulatory framework for any Virginia-domiciled or Virginia-serving payment-stablecoin issuer, delegating approval to federal banking agencies or qualified state regulators, with implementing regulations generally required by July 18, 2026; no Virginia-specific state-qualified stablecoin-issuer pathway yet exists.

Outlook

Virginia has no state-qualified payment-stablecoin issuer pathway of its own, so any future framework would sit downstream of the federal GENIUS Act implementing rules due July 18, 2026, making that federal deadline the near-term marker to watch for this domain.

W2Stablecoins & Digital MoneyHigh
Virginia has no bespoke stablecoin-issuer licensing regime; digital-asset activity is governed by the federal GENIUS Act framework and Virginia's HB 798 unclaimed-property update covering digital assets, effective July 1, 2026.
all · compliance · analyst · board
Evidence 5 claims ›

W6HighIndustry Structure & Commercial

see this theme across all jurisdictions →4 claims

Virginia's payments industry structure is anchored by Capital One Financial (McLean), now the largest US credit-card issuer following its $35.3bn Discover acquisition, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

No periodic updates yet · baseline brief is current.

Read the full sub-brief

Industry Structure & Commercial Dynamics

Capital One Financial Corp, headquartered in McLean, closed its $35.3 billion acquisition of Discover Financial Services this cycle, making Capital One the largest US credit-card issuer and the sixth-largest US bank, and reshaping the industry structure around which Virginia's commercial payments footprint is anchored alongside the Richmond Fed.

Outlook

With integration of Discover's card network and workforce now underway, Capital One's scale advantage is likely to keep reshaping US card-issuing competitive dynamics well beyond this reporting cycle, with Virginia's commercial footprint the direct beneficiary.

W6Industry Structure & CommercialHigh
Virginia's payments industry structure is anchored by Capital One Financial (McLean), now the largest US credit-card issuer following its $35.3bn Discover acquisition, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
all · compliance · analyst · board
Evidence 4 claims ›

W13AssessedCommercial Intelligence (M&A, Investment & Product)

see this theme across all jurisdictions →2 claims

The dominant trailing-12-month commercial event tied to Virginia is Capital One's $35.3bn acquisition of Discover Financial Services, closed 2025, with continuing 2026 post-merger layoffs.

No periodic updates yet · baseline brief is current.

Read the full sub-brief

Commercial Intelligence (M&A, Investment & Product)

The dominant trailing-12-month commercial event tied to Virginia is Capital One Financial Corp's completed $35.3 billion acquisition of Discover Financial Services, a disclosed-value deal forming the largest US credit-card issuer and the nation's sixth-largest bank. Post-merger integration continued into 2026 with further workforce reductions: Capital One laid off 1,139 workers at Discover's former Riverwoods headquarters in early March 2026, on top of roughly 600 in late 2025.

Outlook

No additional Virginia-headquartered fintech funding rounds or product launches were identified within the trailing-12-month window beyond the Capital One-Discover transaction, a possible under-indexing of private-company and early-stage signal that should be re-tested next cycle.

W13Commercial Intelligence (M&A, Investment & Product)Assessed
The dominant trailing-12-month commercial event tied to Virginia is Capital One's $35.3bn acquisition of Discover Financial Services, closed 2025, with continuing 2026 post-merger layoffs.
all · compliance · analyst · board
Evidence 2 claims ›

W3AssessedOperational Resilience & Critical Infrastructure

see this theme across all jurisdictions →5 claims

Virginia has no payments-specific operational-resilience regime analogous to DORA; resilience oversight runs through the Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security (as Chief Resilience Officer) and university-partnered cybersecurity research (Commonwealth Cyber Initiative). The state's acute exposure is physical/critical-infrastructure concentration risk from its globally significant data-center cluster in Loudoun County ("Data Center Alley"), which underpins much of the mid-Atlantic's digital and payments infrastructure and has already produced a near-blackout grid event.

No periodic updates yet · baseline brief is current.

Read the full sub-brief

Operational Resilience & Critical Infrastructure

Virginia has no payments-specific operational-resilience regime analogous to the EU's DORA, so the closest identified proxy is physical: Loudoun County's 'Data Center Alley' concentrates 143 or more data centers whose grid dependency exposes payments-adjacent digital infrastructure to concentration risk, illustrated by a July 2024 near-blackout of 1.5 gigawatts that revealed structural mismatch with aging PJM transmission infrastructure.

Outlook

With no payments-specific resilience regime on the horizon and grid capacity constraints in Data Center Alley well documented, the physical-infrastructure exposure identified this cycle should be treated as a standing structural risk rather than a one-off event.

W3Operational Resilience & Critical InfrastructureAssessed
Virginia has no payments-specific operational-resilience regime analogous to DORA; resilience oversight runs through the Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security (as Chief Resilience Officer) and university-partnered cybersecurity research (Commonwealth Cyber Initiative). The state's acute exposure is physical/critical-infrastructure concentration risk from its globally significant data-center cluster in Loudoun County ("Data Center Alley"), which underpins much of the mid-Atlantic's digital and payments infrastructure and has already produced a near-blackout grid event.
all · compliance · analyst · board
Evidence 5 claims ›

W4HighScheme & Network Compliance

see this theme across all jurisdictions →4 claims

Virginia does not regulate card-scheme rulebooks directly, but it does regulate merchant-facing scheme economics through its 2025 surcharge-disclosure statute and maintains a long-standing state credit-card crimes code governing acquirer/issuer/cardholder fraud. Card-network surcharge caps (Visa 3%, Mastercard 4%) and PCI DSS remain scheme-set rather than state-set standards applicable in Virginia as in all US states.

No periodic updates yet · baseline brief is current.

Read the full sub-brief

Scheme & Network Compliance

Virginia's SB 1212 total-price transparency requirement sits atop existing card-network surcharge caps of 3% for Visa and 4% for Mastercard, and the Commonwealth imposes no independent state-level surcharge cap of its own, while debit-card surcharging remains illegal nationwide. Standing alongside that overlay, Virginia Code Title 18.2, Chapter 6, Article 6 criminalises unauthorized presentment of credit or debit card transactions to an issuer or acquirer, reaching Class 5 felony level where fraudulent intent is present and a Class 1 misdemeanor otherwise.

Outlook

Enforcement of SB 1212 as a Consumer Protection Act violation, paired with a private right of action, gives acquirers and merchants a concrete near-term compliance incentive that is likely to generate the first wave of Virginia-specific surcharge-disclosure case activity.

W4Scheme & Network ComplianceHigh
Virginia does not regulate card-scheme rulebooks directly, but it does regulate merchant-facing scheme economics through its 2025 surcharge-disclosure statute and maintains a long-standing state credit-card crimes code governing acquirer/issuer/cardholder fraud. Card-network surcharge caps (Visa 3%, Mastercard 4%) and PCI DSS remain scheme-set rather than state-set standards applicable in Virginia as in all US states.
all · compliance · analyst · board
Evidence 4 claims ›

W5ConfirmedPayment Corridor Dynamics

see this theme across all jurisdictions →4 claims

Virginia is not itself a distinct cross-border payments corridor jurisdiction, but it hosts the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, headquarters of the Fifth Federal Reserve District and a key national hub for FedNow instant payments, ACH and Treasury payment processing — making Virginia structurally central to US domestic payment-rail dynamics even absent its own corridor-specific regulation.

No periodic updates yet · baseline brief is current.

Read the full sub-brief

Payment Corridor Dynamics

Virginia's structural role in US domestic payment corridors runs through the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond rather than through any Virginia-specific corridor regulation: Richmond operates the FedNow instant-payments service, which has run since July 2023, alongside national ACH processing and Fifth District Treasury and payment infrastructure.

Outlook

Virginia's corridor position is structural rather than event-driven this cycle; the Richmond Fed's continued FedNow and ACH operation should be read as a stable baseline against which any future instant-payments expansion elsewhere would be benchmarked.

W5Payment Corridor DynamicsConfirmed
Virginia is not itself a distinct cross-border payments corridor jurisdiction, but it hosts the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, headquarters of the Fifth Federal Reserve District and a key national hub for FedNow instant payments, ACH and Treasury payment processing — making Virginia structurally central to US domestic payment-rail dynamics even absent its own corridor-specific regulation.
all · compliance · analyst · board
Evidence 4 claims ›

W7HighLegal & Litigation

see this theme across all jurisdictions →5 claims

Virginia's Attorney General maintains an active payments/fintech-adjacent enforcement posture through multistate consumer-protection settlements (notably the ACI Worldwide/Speedpay ACH-error settlement and its long-running Predatory Lending Unit actions) and the VCPA. State courts have also recently narrowed the reach of Virginia's wage-payment "wage theft" statute, a ruling with implications for payroll-adjacent payment disputes.

No periodic updates yet · baseline brief is current.

Read the full sub-brief

Legal & Litigation

The Supreme Court of Virginia held in Groundworks Operations LLC v. Campbell, decided December 30, 2025, that the Virginia Wage Payment Act's 'wage theft' protections do not extend to commissions, narrowing the statute's scope for payroll and payment disputes. In a legacy but still-standing enforcement matter, ACI Worldwide settled with the Virginia Attorney General and other states for $10 million (Virginia's share $247,018.82) over a 2021 Speedpay ACH platform testing error that risked unauthorized withdrawal of $2.3 billion from mortgage-holder accounts.

Outlook

Both matters are settled or decided rather than pending, so the near-term watch item is whether the Supreme Court's narrower reading of the Wage Payment Act is challenged or extended in subsequent Virginia payroll-payment litigation.

W7Legal & LitigationHigh
Virginia's Attorney General maintains an active payments/fintech-adjacent enforcement posture through multistate consumer-protection settlements (notably the ACI Worldwide/Speedpay ACH-error settlement and its long-running Predatory Lending Unit actions) and the VCPA. State courts have also recently narrowed the reach of Virginia's wage-payment "wage theft" statute, a ruling with implications for payroll-adjacent payment disputes.
all · compliance · analyst · board
Evidence 5 claims ›

W8AssessedMerchant Acquiring & Risk

see this theme across all jurisdictions →4 claims

Virginia has no bespoke merchant-acquiring licensing regime or high-risk-MCC statute; acquiring activity is governed by the state's general credit-card crimes code (acquirer/issuer definitions and fraud offences) and, since July 2025, by the SB 1212 total-price/surcharge disclosure requirement that directly affects acquirer-merchant fee pass-through practices.

No periodic updates yet · baseline brief is current.

Read the full sub-brief

Merchant Acquiring & Risk

Virginia has no bespoke merchant-acquiring licensing regime and no dedicated high-risk-MCC statute; acquiring activity is instead governed by the general credit-card crimes code in Title 18.2 together with the SB 1212 fee-disclosure overlay, which affects how acquirers and merchants pass through processing fees.

Outlook

Absent a bespoke acquiring statute, Virginia's merchant-acquiring risk framework will likely keep evolving indirectly, through fee-disclosure enforcement under SB 1212 rather than through any dedicated high-risk-merchant rulemaking.

W8Merchant Acquiring & RiskAssessed
Virginia has no bespoke merchant-acquiring licensing regime or high-risk-MCC statute; acquiring activity is governed by the state's general credit-card crimes code (acquirer/issuer definitions and fraud offences) and, since July 2025, by the SB 1212 total-price/surcharge disclosure requirement that directly affects acquirer-merchant fee pass-through practices.
all · compliance · analyst · board
Evidence 4 claims ›

W9AssessedProduct Innovation & Market Development

see this theme across all jurisdictions →4 claims

Virginia operates a statutory FinTech Regulatory Sandbox Program (Title 6.2, Chapter 27) allowing limited-licence testing of novel financial products, alongside a contested 2025 legislative push (SB 1252) to impose a 12% usury cap and anti-evasion rules targeting bank-fintech partnership and earned-wage-access lending models — reflecting active tension between innovation policy and consumer-lending guardrails.

No periodic updates yet · baseline brief is current.

Read the full sub-brief

Product Innovation & Market Development

The Virginia FinTech Regulatory Sandbox Program, established under Code of Virginia § 6.2-2701 et seq., allows the State Corporation Commission to grant participants limited market access to test a financial product or service without first obtaining the otherwise-required licence or authorization, subject to fitness and criminal-history exclusions. SB 1252, introduced in January 2025, proposes a 12% interest-rate cap with anti-evasion provisions targeting bank-fintech and BaaS lending partnerships and earned-wage-access products; the American Fintech Council lobbied for a gubernatorial veto, and the bill's final enacted or vetoed status was not confirmed this cycle.

Outlook

SB 1252's final disposition remains the single most consequential open question for Virginia's fintech-lending and earned-wage-access product landscape, and its resolution — enacted, vetoed, or left to carry over — should be the first item checked next cycle.

W9Product Innovation & Market DevelopmentAssessed
Virginia operates a statutory FinTech Regulatory Sandbox Program (Title 6.2, Chapter 27) allowing limited-licence testing of novel financial products, alongside a contested 2025 legislative push (SB 1252) to impose a 12% usury cap and anti-evasion rules targeting bank-fintech partnership and earned-wage-access lending models — reflecting active tension between innovation policy and consumer-lending guardrails.
all · compliance · analyst · board
Evidence 4 claims ›

W10HighConsumer Protection & APP Fraud

see this theme across all jurisdictions →5 claims

Consumer protection for Virginia payments consumers runs primarily through the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA, effective January 1, 2023, with 2026 definitional amendments) and the Virginia Consumer Protection Act, both AG-enforced with no private right of action for the VCDPA. Virginia has no dedicated APP-fraud reimbursement scheme; unauthorized-transfer protection for consumers rests on federal Regulation E rather than state law.

No periodic updates yet · baseline brief is current.

Read the full sub-brief

Consumer Protection & APP Fraud

The Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act grants Virginia residents personal-data rights, enforced exclusively by the Attorney General with no private right of action, effective January 1, 2023, though GLBA-covered financial institutions are broadly exempted from its scope. Virginia has no dedicated state-level authorized-push-payment fraud mandatory-reimbursement scheme; unauthorized-transfer consumer protection rests instead on federal Regulation E rather than any bespoke state statute, an under-indexed area meriting continued attention.

Outlook

With no state APP-fraud reimbursement mandate and no private right of action under the VCDPA, Virginia consumers facing unauthorized-transfer losses or data-handling disputes remain dependent on federal remedies, a gap worth flagging for continued monitoring.

W10Consumer Protection & APP FraudHigh
Consumer protection for Virginia payments consumers runs primarily through the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA, effective January 1, 2023, with 2026 definitional amendments) and the Virginia Consumer Protection Act, both AG-enforced with no private right of action for the VCDPA. Virginia has no dedicated APP-fraud reimbursement scheme; unauthorized-transfer protection for consumers rests on federal Regulation E rather than state law.
all · compliance · analyst · board
Evidence 5 claims ›

W11PossibleAML/CFT & Financial Crime

Sentinelsee this theme across all jurisdictions →2 claims

W11 baseline content for US-VA is Sentinel.gi-fed per methodology; a dedicated Sentinel.gi payments-context feed entry specific to US-VA was not located in this collection pass. The applicable AML/CFT overlay for Virginia payments activity remains the federal Bank Secrecy Act regime: Virginia money transmitters must independently register as Money Services Businesses with FinCEN and maintain an independently reviewed AML/BSA programme as a state-licensing precondition.

No periodic updates yet · baseline brief is current.

Read the full sub-brief

AML/CFT & Financial Crime

Virginia money transmitter licensees must register as a Money Services Business with FinCEN via BSA e-filing and maintain an independently reviewed AML/BSA programme as a precondition of state licensing; no Virginia-specific Sentinel.gi payments-context feed entry was located this cycle, so this dashboard entry carries the federal BSA/MSB overlay only.

Outlook

This module remains thin-coverage until a Virginia-specific Sentinel.gi feed is identified; the illicit-finance dimension of Virginia money-transmitter AML exposure has been routed to the Financial Integrity Monitor and should not be re-analysed here.

W11AML/CFT & Financial CrimePossible
W11 baseline content for US-VA is Sentinel.gi-fed per methodology; a dedicated Sentinel.gi payments-context feed entry specific to US-VA was not located in this collection pass. The applicable AML/CFT overlay for Virginia payments activity remains the federal Bank Secrecy Act regime: Virginia money transmitters must independently register as Money Services Businesses with FinCEN and maintain an independently reviewed AML/BSA programme as a state-licensing precondition.
all · compliance · analyst · board
Evidence 2 claims ›

W12ConfirmedCorrespondent Banking, Settlement & Access

see this theme across all jurisdictions →4 claims

Virginia is host to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, which provides master-account settlement, ACH operation, and Treasury/government payment services across the Fifth District — giving Virginia-domiciled institutions direct structural access to core U.S. settlement infrastructure rather than reliance on correspondent-banking intermediation for domestic settlement.

No periodic updates yet · baseline brief is current.

Read the full sub-brief

Correspondent Banking, Settlement & Access

Virginia's structural spine in correspondent banking is the bank-versus-non-bank access asymmetry: the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond provides master-account settlement, national ACH operation, Discount Window liquidity access, and Treasury payment services across the Fifth District, giving Virginia-domiciled banks direct structural access to core US settlement infrastructure that reduces reliance on correspondent intermediation in ways non-bank licensees cannot replicate.

Outlook

Because this access runs through the Richmond Fed rather than a Virginia-specific settlement scheme, the module's forward trajectory tracks Federal Reserve infrastructure policy rather than state rulemaking, and the bank-versus-non-bank asymmetry should widen as non-bank licensing activity grows under the softened 2025 entry thresholds.

W12Correspondent Banking, Settlement & AccessConfirmed
Virginia is host to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, which provides master-account settlement, ACH operation, and Treasury/government payment services across the Fifth District — giving Virginia-domiciled institutions direct structural access to core U.S. settlement infrastructure rather than reliance on correspondent-banking intermediation for domestic settlement.
all · compliance · analyst · board
Evidence 4 claims ›

Key judgments

6 judgments
W1aConfirmed
Virginia consolidates all payments-adjacent non-bank activity under a single Money Transmitters Act licence with no separate EMI/PPI charter, and is mid-execution of a significant 2025 statutory overhaul of net-worth, bond and investment requirements effective July 1, 2026.
Impact: HIGH
2 supporting claims
Evidence 2 claims ›
W1bHigh
Virginia's safeguarding regime for money-transmission customers relies solely on a surety bond rather than a segregation/trust model, a structural consumer-protection gap relative to jurisdictions mandating fund segregation.
Impact: ELEVATED
1 supporting claim
Evidence 1 claim ›
W4High
SB 1212's total-price/surcharge disclosure mandate (effective July 2025) materially raises compliance risk for acquirers and merchants layering state transparency duties atop card-network surcharge caps.
Impact: ELEVATED
2 supporting claims
Evidence 2 claims ›
W2High
HB 798 makes Virginia one of the first states to bring dormant digital assets into unclaimed-property escheat with a mandatory in-kind custody period, a notable state-level digital-asset custody precedent (signing date corrected to April 13, 2026 per challenger finding).
Impact: HIGH
1 supporting claim
Evidence 1 claim ›
W13High
Capital One's $35.3bn acquisition of Discover Financial Services has reshaped US card-issuing market structure, with continuing 2026 workforce-integration effects at the former Discover HQ.
Impact: HIGH
3 supporting claims
Evidence 3 claims ›
W11Possible
No Virginia-specific Sentinel.gi payments-context feed content was located this cycle; W11 coverage rests on the general federal BSA/MSB overlay and should be flagged for FIM follow-up.
Impact: MONITORED
1 supporting claim
Evidence 1 claim ›

What changed this cycle

16 changes this cycle
domain W1aNew
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domain W9New
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domain W10New
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domain W11Newly Scoped
Sentinel-fed baseline, thin coverage
W11 established under Sentinel-feed provenance but no VA-specific feed entry located.
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domain W12New
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First-cycle baseline population for US-VA.
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domain W13New
Baseline established
First-cycle baseline population for US-VA.
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horizon wpm-reg-1New
VA MTA overhaul in force 2026-07-01
New forward-date item extracted from research.
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horizon wpm-reg-3New
GENIUS Act implementing regs due 2026-07-18
New forward-date item extracted from research.
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Risk posture

1 tracked
US-VAActive Legislative Modernization Across Licensing, Disclosure And Digital-Asset Custody
2025 MTA overhaul and HB 798 crypto escheat both took effect July 1, 2026; Capital One-Discover integration continuing.
Risk level: Elevated
Confidence: High
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World Payments jurisdiction data · United States — Virginia (US-VA) · schema world-payments-v1 · baseline wpm-2026-07-08. Data-driven from the published jurisdiction contract — all values shown are read directly from the pipeline output (server-rendered).

Evidence

Confidence-tiered claims

No structured claims published for this jurisdiction yet.