BankThink

A successful e-business has two essential ingredients. It must be easy to make payments, and it must come up quickly when consumers are searching online.

Yes, April is Financial Literacy Month. But helping members to achieve financial well-being? That's 24/7/365 the mission of credit unions, not just the flavor of the month.

Many financial institutions mistakenly think of effective duration as a measure of time, as opposed to a measure of price sensitivity. When measuring duration in terms of time, institutions are actually calculating a "Macaulay" or cash flow duration. Effective duration represents the percent change in the price of an asset for a given change in rates.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week.

During NACUSO's annual meeting last week peaceful acceptance of a component of NCUA's risk-based capital proposal did not rule the day, with many openly wondering why the agency is assigning a Smart car the risk weight of a bulldozer.

Without meaningful transparency on banks’ financial reports, regulatory capital ratios and living wills, anyone writing about bank earnings is a willing actor in banks’ quarterly earnings Kabuki theater.

Under its aggressive quantitative easing program, the Fed is borrowing short-term and investing long-term, exposing itself to severe interest rate risk when short-term rates rise, writes former Fed economist Scott Hein.

Earnings, Earnings, Earnings … and More Earnings

A poor showing for a bank in the Dodd-Frank stress test would need to be reflected in a counterparty bank's internal rating system, potentially restricting the bank's access to market liquidity.

U.S. banks today are safer, sounder, more secure, transparent, accountable and are performing their critical roles in the global economy.