Up until now, no fintech company has succeeded on a mass scale to offer solutions beyond its core product. But disruptors are trying to go in that direction, and banks should watch their efforts closely.

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Backwater no longer: Payment systems have long been a backwater of finance, but all that is changing, the Financial Times says in a special report on "The Payments Revolution." While the expansion of online shopping and mobile payment devices has spurred massive growth, "the industry is entering a period of extreme disruption. The dominant players — the banks and credit card companies — face an uncertain future. A fast-growing group of upstart…

The staff at the Securities and Exchange Commission is working on a proposal to amend the current diversity disclosure rule to require more specificity, including information on the race, gender and ethnicity of board members and nominees. Here's why.

This year, KeyCorp executed the second-largest bank acquisition by deal value since the financial crisis and announced a groundbreaking commitment to do $16.5 billion of lending to low- and moderate-income communities across several states. Chairman and CEO Beth Mooney also purposely raised the visibility of other executives at her company, to bring more diversity of thought into the company’s decision-making process. But Mooney doesn't see an end to her days of trailblazing yet.

Financial services IT teams must think like cybercriminals and develop an offensive approach to security at a time when threats are growing in frequency and sophistication.

A compliance-at-all-cost mentality, which is the overarching attitude in many banks, results in overspending and overallocating valuable resources to meet both real and perceived compliance standards.

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Another day, another woe: The pressure on Wells Fargo continues to increase. Eight Democrat senators Thursday asked the Labor Department to open an investigation into the bank's workplace practices. Specifically, the senators, led by Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., asked the department's Wage and Hour Division to examine whether Wells "aggressively skirted" overtime laws and failed to properly compensate its lower-level employees. Labor said it was taking "very seriously" complaints about how the bank…

We haven't heard from Carrie Tolstedt yet, but she has been in the spotlight all week, as seemingly everyone wants an explanation from Wells Fargo. JPMorgan Chase puts even more focus on digital channels, and Politico has a piece on the opportunities fintech offers women, especially female bankers, with a caveat. Also, the B of A bros' club suit has been settled.

The Wells Fargo scandal is more reason for officials to tighten policy on anti-tying measures to put a stop to overly aggressive sales methods.

In 2010, lawmakers passed reforms to bring transparency and competition to a swipe fee market that had been devoid of both. Now, they want to undo that progress.

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Round Two: Congress isn't through with Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf just yet. Following his pummeling before the Senate Banking Committee Tuesday, Stumpf has been asked to testify before the House Financial Services Committee next week on the bank's phony accounts scandal. The New York Times' Gretchen Morgenson says Wells' recent behavior was no surprise to attorneys who battled the bank in mortgage foreclosure cases after the housing meltdown. "During the financial crisis,…

Paper-based marketing — not digital communication — remains a more promising way to reach customers 50 and older, who also tend to be a bank's wealthiest client segment.

What happens on an executive leader's watch starts and stops with that executive. That is especially true when it comes to sales and sales leadership.

Receiving Wide Coverage ... How long?: Wells Fargo CEO John G. Stumpf told the Senate Banking Committee the bank's pervasive pattern of illegally opening banking accounts without its customers' permission may have gone on even longer than previously believed. "Although the bank has traced the illegal account openings to 2011, it is investigating whether they may have begun even sooner," Stumpf told the panel, according to the New York Times. Stumpf said he found about the…

Contrary to expectations about growing mortgage lending volumes, current industry trends suggest a gradual reduction in capacity for both lending and servicing that should alarm policymakers.