BankThink

Mixed messaging on fin tech doesn't just emanate from the halls of Congress. It can also be found at the regulatory level as well.

We can all agree that financial education is one of the most significant and impactful ways that credit unions set themselves apart from other financial institutions.

We are all happy to see low unemployment numbers, but it also puts human resources in the spotlight when it comes to recruitment, retention.

Unlike Wells Fargo's unauthorized account openings, concerns in 2003 about banks discounting rates on loans in exchange for customers buying investment-banking products were less about consumer protection than the potential harm to credit quality and competition.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Opening bid: The Justice Department has proposed that Deutsche Bank pay $14 billion to settle a series of mortgage-backed securities investigations dating back to the financial crisis, "a number that would rank among the largest of what other banks have paid to resolve similar claims and is well above what investors have been expecting," the Wall Street Journal reported. The figure is preliminary, and it's unclear how much of that proposed amount would be paid in cash and how much might be in consumer relief. Regardless, the bank said it "has no intent to settle these potential civil claims anywhere near the number cited. The negotiations are only just beginning," adding that it expects to settle at a "materially lower" amount.

Millennials hate banks so much, they’d rather go to the dentist than listen to what banks have to say. And digital payment alternatives are taking advantage.

Washington is hopping with news this time around. It's been a blistering week for Wells Fargo, and Maxine Waters, Carolyn Maloney and Elizabeth Warren are among those using scathing rhetoric about the bank to try to kill Dodd-Frank reform efforts. Speculation is that both presidential candidates are looking to Silicon Valley to fill key posts in their administration, and talk of Sheryl Sandberg as Treasury Secretary is growing louder. Also, check out the "amplification" strategy women in the White House are using to help their voices get heard at important meetings.

Increasingly, our conversations about digital banking are only about technology. We must expand our dialogue to include ways to make digital banking empathetic.

For large banks, the risks of partnering with marketplace lenders do not matter. But small community banks can't afford to partner with competitors angling to poach their customers.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...Wells probed: Federal prosecutors in at least three districts have begun investigating Wells Fargo's sales practices in the wake of last week's $185 million settlement. The Wall Street Journal reported that federal prosecutors in Manhattan and San Francisco sent subpoenas to the bank. The investigation "is focusing on whether someone senior within the bank directed employees to falsify documents in conjunction with the opening of accounts and products without consumers' knowledge or authorization," the Journal reported. "Prosecutors are also focusing on whether there was willful blindness to sales practices on the part of executives at the bank."