BankThink

The credit agencies played a role in the Great Recession, but marketplace lenders still need ratings oversight to make their businesses viable.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Winner and losers: Small and medium-size banks are likely to be the biggest winners in a Donald Trump administration. Big banks? Not so much. "One thing investors can likely be confident in is that substantial deregulation is coming for smaller banks," the Wall Street Journal said. There is already a bipartisan consensus that smaller banks are overly burdened by Dodd-Frank regulations, while there are several proposals that would raise the threshold for annual stress-testing by the Federal Reserve to $250 billion of assets from $50 billion.

Lots of banks offer P-to-P and bill pay, but Fiserv's research suggests institutions can make improvements in making consumers aware.

The new administration and Republican-controlled Congress have a historic opportunity in 2017 to bring banking into the 21st century.

Threats to the industry's control over payments were apparent before PayPal became popular. However, risks are even more visible and real today.

The only tactic for survival is brutal honesty. So let's accept the very real risk of disappearing and do the heavy lifting required to persevere.

Breaking News This Morning ...Trump triumphs: Global financial markets dropped sharply in the initial reaction to Donald Trump's unexpected victory in the U.S. presidential race. Stocks in Asia and Europe dropped sharply, bond prices fell and the Mexican peso plunged, but gold prices jumped higher. The Republicans held onto their control of both houses of Congress. Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times

Small merchants need to adopt omnichannel, but it can be difficult in a low resource environment. Staying flexible to add technology fast is key.

It is premature to say whether criticism of cross-selling and calls to break up the big banks will lead to action, but there is one area where a spinoff could actually be in the banks' interest.

Making customer experience consistently good is a priority, but it's not enough. Great experiences in the future will be tailored to individual needs and preferences.