The Fed appears to have looked at Bitcoin as a means for real-time payments in the banking system but shelved the concept for now.

Federal Reserve officials have been calling on banks to strengthen their ethical cultures. The message will carry more weight if regulators are willing to turn the spotlight on their own practices.

A plan to tax the liabilities of systemically important banks could help curb risk to the financial system, but the president and Congress should first consider more realistic asset thresholds.

Wall Street Journal

Retailers large and small, not to mention the head of strategic partnerships at Visa, told the Journal that many more customers are using Apple Pay than other mobile-wallet services, such as Softcard, the mobile-wallet services formerly known as Isis that's backed by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. The reasons: Apple's consumer gadgets are popular; banks and credit unions have been aggressively marketing the services; and consumers' cybersecurity concerns after breaches at Home Depot and…

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week.

Hacker groups like Anonymous have announced plans to target banks that are helping to finance ISIS and other terrorist organizations. But it is governments, banks and regulators that need to work harder at rooting out the sources of ISIS's funding.

Former Miss America Bess Myerson helped overhaul Citi's consumer loan contracts in the 1970s. Then she turned her attention to cleaning up the bank's collections unit.

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Canadian Invasion: The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Reuters (via the New York Times) all take a closer look at Royal Bank of Canada's decision to acquire City National in Los Angeles. RBC may have stubbed its toe in its previous American incursion with RBC Centura (which it later sold to PNC), but City National is a different play. The California bank has a big presence in wealth management, particularly managing…

As a consultant to Citibank in the 1970s, former Miss America Bess Myerson helped spearhead landmark consumer reforms — including the first plain-language agreement in the financial services industry.

Even if arbitration does turn out to be beneficial for many consumers, Americans should not lose their constitutional right to a day in court without being aware that they are doing so.

Breaking News This Morning ... Earnings: KeyCorp, Huntington, BB&T, BankUnited Receiving Wide Coverage ... European QE: The European Central Bank is expected to launch a quantitative-easing program that could include the purchase of about 50 billion euros worth of bonds each month (equivalent to about $58 billion). Europe hasn't embarked on a QE program during the recent years of economic tumult. But the state of the continent's fragile economy prompted the move, said Matteo Renzi, Italy's prime minister.…

This year, electronic trading will finally come to the bond market and more banks will adopt technologies that harness social media to flag potentially fraudulent customers.

The federal government's recent decisions to lower annual premiums for new borrowers and reduce down payment requirements suggest it has little interest in making room for private capital in the mortgage market.

Breaking News This Morning ... Earnings: Fifth Third, U.S. Bancorp Receiving Wide Coverage ... SOTU from POTUS: Banking and finance played a lead role in President Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday night. For one, Obama vowed to keep Dodd-Frank intact, saying the law's rules and the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are protecting American consumers. However, Obama avoided direct bashing of banks, declining to take up the same rhetoric as Sen. Elizabeth Warren,…

Let this be the year that the financial industry stops using the phrase "big data" and remembers that the goal of technology is to make people's lives simpler.