BankThink

Receiving Wide Coverage ...More risky: Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo pose greater systemic risks to the global financial system than they did last year and had their capital requirements increased by regulators. The Financial Stability Board, which ranks the most systemically important financial institutions annually, also said Industrial and Commercial Bank of China presented more risk than last year. But HSBC, Barclays and Morgan Stanley—which sold all or part of their riskier businesses or reduced the size of them—were all deemed to be less systemically risky and had their capital requirements reduced. Globally, 30 banks are considered systemically important and subject to extra capital requirements. Financial Times, New York Times

Illegal methods of moving money are just as likely to be low-tech and old school as high-tech and sophisticated. Surveillance methods and processes need to be able to counter both.

A bill looming in Congress would require the Internal Revenue Service to accept electronic transmission of lending-related forms, which could speed up the lending process by days.

Politicians clamoring for the largest U.S. institutions to be broken up have failed to consider the prospect of China acquiring a bigger piece of the American banking system.

Wall Street JournalTighter grip: The OCC Friday unilaterally revoked parts of its recent regulatory consent order with Wells Fargo following the bank's phony accounts scandal. The agency ordered Wells to first seek its approval before changing its business plans, hiring or firing senior executives or revamping its board of directors. The bank was also banned from making golden parachute payments to departing executives without OCC approval.

The EMV migration has been sluggish, but it's a vital part of protecting cardholders.

Banks should focus on strategies to ensure their sales incentives programs actually help drive profits. Otherwise, their rewards programs are at risk of adding zero benefit to their bottom line.

For all of the sophisticated ways criminals might try to launder money, banks still need to defend against low-tech methods that aren’t easy to track.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Settled: JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $264 million and admit it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to resolve charges that it hired relatives of Chinese government officials and managers of state-owned companies to win business in China. But it may only be the first of many banks to do so. Several other U.S. and foreign banks are under investigation for similar practices, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, HSBC and UBS. "We do not expect this to be the last action resulting from that sweep," said Andrew J. Ceresney, the head of enforcement at the SEC.

Forget about municipal governments. Through transactions such as payments, banks have a trove of data that can be used to revolutionize how cities work.