BankThink

The Internal Revenue Service's petition for information on Coinbase customers is an overreach that should concern Americans regardless of whether they use bitcoin.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Differing views: The Wall Street Journal's editorial page had some strong words about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the "rogue" bureau "which has abused the law and whose structure was recently found unconstitutional. By all rights the bureau should be killed," it says, and "Mr. Trump should dismiss [Director Richard] Cordray on his first day as President." "Reform options short of a death sentence could at least restrain some of the bureau's abuses," it adds, if the GOP isn't successful in killing the agency.

Retailers are adding e-commerce services quickly, but older technology systems are making the migration difficult.

The president-elect could take aim at the Federal Reserve's ties to Wall Street, bailout authority and other reforms if he really means to take steps to help working people.

The election results will only intensify factors making competition with bank lenders more difficult, including the effect of interest rates as well as the regulatory environment.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Racing Stripe: The latest round of private funding for Stripe, a start-up that offers software and services that process payments for businesses, has boosted the value of the company to just under $9.2 billion, nearly double what it was worth less than two years ago and making it the most valuable U.S. fintech company, according to the Wall Street Journal. "Stripe's investors think the company can capitalize on the fast growth of online payments as consumers transfer more of their offline spending to internet retailers and as Stripe continues to expand internationally," the paper said. Stripe plans to use the new funds for acquisitions international expansion.

As subscription services get more complicated, the technology required to send bills, process payments and execute marketing campaigns will become harder to manage.

Ping-pong tables, latte machines and other neat frills don't attract millennials as much as companies like to think, according to Melissa Louis, managing consultant at The Gallup Organization, which has done massive surveys in this area. "The biggest thing millennials really care about is development," she says. "Are they going to be in an organization where they will be consistently coached, where they can see a path for themselves in the future, regardless of what role they're starting in?

Threats to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's future became more real with Donald Trump's victory, but all the outrage over the bureau's policies is overblown.

The GOP victories boosted expectations of federal regulatory action easing up, but such a scenario would likely create a void of power for certain state agencies to fill.