BankThink

A report on women in the financial services industry illuminates some of the ways gender is still a factor holding them back. One problem is unstated ideas about qualities for success, which have been decided over decades by men. It seems that gender diversity initiatives aren't helping, but a couple of headhunters have some suggestions for how banks can do better and so does Debbie Matz. "Equity" screenwriter Amy Fox talks about what she learned from women on Wall Street, and the film is set to become the basis of a new ABC television series.

The last movie about female executives on Wall Street was "Working Girl" in 1983. The end of the movie left the audience feeling euphoric. But in creating the movie "Equity," we set out to explore — as authentically as possible — the experiences women have in this field, and the truths that we encountered in our interviews were not pretty.

Breaking News This Morning ...Deutsche Bank reports: Deutsche Bank reported a profit of €278 million in the third quarter, compared to a loss of €6.02 billion in the year earlier quarter. Analysts had been expecting another loss. The big German bank said it was making progress on turning around its business even as it seeks to negotiate a reduced penalty with the U.S. Justice Department to close a probe related to mortgage securities. Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times

The latest tale of wrongdoing tied to the financial services industry is the outcome of a smart customer-centered strategy that went awry. Now, bank customers will ultimately suffer the most.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...OCC seeks data: The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has sent formal letters to large and regional banks it regulates seeking information about their sales practices and incentive-compensation plans following the Wells Fargo scandal. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Santander USA were among the banks getting letters. Comptroller Thomas Curry told the Senate Banking Committee last month the regulator will "review the sales practices of all the large and midsize banks the OCC supervises and assess the sufficiency of controls with respect to these practices."

Neither bank regulators nor banks' risk managers can afford to wait until rating agencies downgrade Deutsche before understanding the level of exposure they have to the German bank giant.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Court hears SIFI appeal: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard arguments from the federal government on Monday that MetLife is a "systemically important financial institution" and requires stricter regulation. The Financial Stability Oversight Council voted in December 2014 that the insurance company was a "SIFI" but was overruled by a U.S. district court judge earlier this year. The FSOC is now appealing that decision. "Beyond issues related to MetLife directly, the case holds broader significance," the Wall Street Journal commented. "The ability to bring large financial companies such as MetLife under tougher rules was an important piece of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul. The law created the council to … tag financial companies for stricter oversight if it determined their failure could put the broader economy at risk." Wall Street Journal, American Banker, New York Times

The technology behind bitcoin has almost endless use cases.

To land and retain millennial customers, mobile banking apps must graduate from simply replicating online banking on a phone to leveraging the native functionality of mobile hardware.

Breaking News This Morning ...Discount brokers to merge: TD Ameritrade is buying rival Scottrade for $4 billion. The combined company will have $944 billion in client assets and execute 600,000 client trades a day. TD says the merger will enable the two companies to cut costs by $450 million a year. Wall Street Journal, Financial Times