Opinions

The explosive growth of largely unregulated online lenders has given them new opportunities to prey on unsuspecting borrowers.

Visa and MasterCard's support for host card emulation (HCE) is a boost for mobile pay, though there are still security concerns.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week, including the merits and drawbacks of Sen. Richard Shelby's regulatory reform legislation, whether bigger banks are inherently riskier and banks' evolving interest in blockchain technology.

If there was any question about the need for Congress to modernize our nation’s data-security laws, the recent settlement negotiation between Target and MasterCard should put all doubts to rest.

It took three or so days to settle stock trades. What if that could happen instantly and be recorded on a blockchain for everyone to see?

For all the excitement about the blockchain's potential to shake up the financial industry, few people understand how it works. The really revolutionary part of the blockchain process is how miners manage to keep records of transactions accurate and tamper-proof.

While young consumers do not have a past with legacy payments methods and are most open to new innovation, most new payment systems are not adequately focused on the youth market.

Let Target's settlement with MasterCard over the retailer's massive data breach serve as a reminder of the need for all participants in the payments system to play by the same set of rules.

Although more than half of younger shoppers are already willing to use wearables to make in-store payments, we are still firmly in the age of the smartphone.

In the payments industry, the common practice is to equate mobile merchants with micro merchants, and to put them on a back burner for things like EMV upgrades.