BankThink

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has been so underfunded, for so long, that it has been forced to propose cuts to the vital Current Population Survey, which tracks the unemployment rate. Congress cannot allow that to happen.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. wants to remove an exemption that allows index funds to invest freely in bank stocks. The result will be damaging to the investors who have come to rely on the funds' steady returns.

The state's ill-conceived law banning interchange fees on sales tax and gratuities will be burdensome and expensive to implement and could portend a patchwork of state-level copycat legislation that would balkanize the payments system.

The Federal Reserve's apparent unwillingness to disclose volumetric details about banks' use of its proprietary faster payments network suggests the central bank is hiding something. That something could be the slow death of faster payments as the new normal.

The new real-time payments system is being optimized for speed, not necessarily security, requiring the banks participating in the program to exercise a heightened level of vigilance.

Federal regulators have rewritten the rules for bank mergers in a way that will discourage the kinds of deals necessary to preserve healthy regional banks.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s proposed rule on brokered deposits would be a step backwards for the agency and the industry it regulates.

As a leader, just because you have the authority to make a decision doesn't mean you should always be the one making it. A good manager allows subordinates to make choices and assume responsibility.

An amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act would expand access to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's beneficial ownership database. That would allow financial firms to cut off drug traffickers' financing.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra's decision to withhold support of a reworked Basel III endgame capital proposal is logical as a way to gain leverage in this and future rule negotiations but may ultimately not amount to much.