Recent high-profile ethics violations by senior Federal Reserve officials, including new revelations concerning stock trades by former Fed Gov. Adriana Kugler, have sparked debate over the effectiveness of the central bank's oversight, even as some observers stress such cases remain rare.

Chris Ward of TD Bank and American Banker reporter Allissa Kline talk about challenges and opportunities in banking small businesses.

Years ago, the Federal Housing Administration helped finance thousands of loans for manufactured housing. An effort to restart that program would help millions of Americans afford their own homes.

The Swedish financial technology firm issued its first stablecoin and signed a gift card distribution deal with BlackRock. Also, EMVCo is examining AI's impact on processing and more in the American Banker global payments and fintech roundup.

As the need for easy-yet-secure mobile banking authentication escalates and consumers become used to logging in by looking into a camera, banks are taking the technology more seriously.

Banks talk a good game about thwarting fraud and protecting consumers and businesses, but the experiences of this author, a former bank regulator, illustrate how the quality of such efforts varies dramatically from one bank to the next.

The company angered hundreds of customers when its software flagged their accounts as suspicious and suddenly cut them off, according to a ProPublica report. The episode illustrates the challenge shared by fintechs and banks of rooting out scammers without being overzealous.

Europe has encouraged adoption with rules that put consumers in control of the way their data is shared among banks, fintechs and third-party vendors. Whether the U.S. can make similar progress without its own rules is unclear.