BankThink

It looks like the U.S. market will finally join a large number of other countries and offer real-time payments—but can ubiquity be achieved?

Concerns about cross-selling run deeper than the risk of misbehavior. The practice also has a questionable economic rationale.

The bad-news stories about the largest institutions are worrisome in light of housing finance proposals that could benefit the big banks even more.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Good news, bad news: Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo had some good news and some bad news for U.S. commercial banks on Monday. First, he said the Fed is proposing easing stress-test requirements for banks with less than $250 billion in assets that don't engage in significant nonbank or international activity. But the central bank is also considering a separate proposal, to be issued sometime next year, that would have the effect of "significantly" raising capital requirements for the largest banks that are considered "systemically important," meaning the eight largest.

Data breaches aren’t going away. What’s also frustrating for those tasked with protecting data is that poor consumer habits regarding online security aren’t going away, either. Weak passwords shared across all online accounts continue, despite ever-growing threats.

Up until now, no fintech company has succeeded on a mass scale to offer solutions beyond its core product. But disruptors are trying to go in that direction, and banks should watch their efforts closely.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Backwater no longer: Payment systems have long been a backwater of finance, but all that is changing, the Financial Times says in a special report on "The Payments Revolution." While the expansion of online shopping and mobile payment devices has spurred massive growth, "the industry is entering a period of extreme disruption. The dominant players — the banks and credit card companies — face an uncertain future. A fast-growing group of upstart financial technology, or 'fintech,' companies are lining up to challenge the incumbent payment providers by offering to meet customer demand for faster, cheaper and easier-to-use services — many of them using the blockchain." At the same time, regulators are increasing pressure on banks to reduce their fees, while traditional payment services "are facing an onslaught of cyber attacks from an army of increasingly sophisticated hackers and digital criminals."

In 2010, lawmakers passed bipartisan reforms to bring transparency and competition to a debit card swipe fee market that had previously been void of both. Now, members of Congress want to undo that progress.

This year, KeyCorp executed the second-largest bank acquisition by deal value since the financial crisis and announced a groundbreaking commitment to do $16.5 billion of lending to low- and moderate-income communities across several states. Chairman and CEO Beth Mooney also purposely raised the visibility of other executives at her company, to bring more diversity of thought into the company’s decision-making process. But Mooney doesn't see an end to her days of trailblazing yet.

The staff at the Securities and Exchange Commission is working on a proposal to amend the current diversity disclosure rule to require more specificity, including information on the race, gender and ethnicity of board members and nominees. Here's why.