Blockchain

Finance that relies on smartphones and smart contracts can lower costs for banking services and promote financial inclusion, proponents say. But a look at who is using the technology tells a different story.

CEO Thomas Cangemi is pushing to modernize a bank that for decades was focused largely on multifamily lending. The company has already agreed to buy the mortgage lender Flagstar Bancorp and its partnership with Figure Technologies, a blockchain-focused fintech, has the potential to make that acquisition more productive.

New York Community Bancorp says it will invest in Figure Technologies, which has developed an open source distributed ledger. The bank plans to use the technology to cut costs in mortgages and payments and promote financial inclusion.

CoinFund, a blockchain-focused investment firm, hired Christopher Perkins from Citigroup as managing partner and president to help bridge the gap to the traditional finance sector.

The blockchain company's new lead on the Continent, Sendi Young, discusses its plans to foster real-time and cross-border transactions between banks and fintechs in ways that aren't possible on legacy networks.

A posting for a digital currency job at Amazon stirred speculation that the e-commerce giant might begin accepting bitcoin at checkout. The company denies that — and experts say it has many other ways to make the most of its intended hire.

State Street is set to offer cryptocurrency reporting, reconciliation and processing services to its private-fund clients in the latest sign that digital assets are gaining acceptance on Wall Street.

Amazon.com’s payments team is exploring letting customers use cryptocurrencies to pay for their orders, a development that’s roiling digital currency markets.

The card issuer, which is offering its customers a chance to purchase non-fungible tokens created from a recent performance by the singer SZA, is betting that the digital art-trading phenomenon will become more mainstream.