Embracing technology that gives innovators access to their platforms will provide banks with the upgrade they sorely need.

Well-established tech giants like Amazon and Google pose a more formidable threat to banks than the thousands of startups populating the fintech market.

How Eastern Bank pulled off something few community banks have: launching a digital lending product that the 197-year-old mutual dreamed up in its innovation lab.

The Independent Community Bankers of America said that it agrees with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s support for “responsible innovation” in fintech but that it worries marketplace lenders have a “regulatory advantage.”

Well before the mobile payments explosion, incumbents were already focused on how to respond to nonbanks "piggybacking" on banks' payments infrastructure. As the consultant behind a 1994 banking industry report on the threat put it, "there is no time for delay."

During the ascension of marketplace lending, banks responded to the competitive threat in several different ways. Now some banks are better positioned than others to take advantage of the online sector's recent woes.

Banks and nonbanks should accept that more fintech regulation is inevitable, but how far regulators go will depend in part on how well companies demonstrate they are managing risk.

Capital One in McLean, Va., has launched an accelerator program for U.K. fintech startups. The 10-week program, called Growth Labs, will operate from the company's Nottingham, England, headquarters in partnership with tech investor L Marks.

Banks are trying to upgrade tech offerings, from mobile banking to bill pay. But that's easier said than done, in part because the biggest core processors use their dominant market share to restrict access to banks' networks. They do this, in part, because they offer their own competing tech products.

Too many fintech companies are selling superficial products. Entrepreneurs need to start solving hard problems and offering real value.

The payment giant's technology chief says he has an eye on bitcoin, the blockchain and the fintech competitors that have flooded the payments arena — and vows his company will consider partnering with some of them and can beat the rest.

The distributed ledger technology has an answer for updating every core function of the antiquated financial system.

Small-scale financial services companies such as storefront lenders and local money transmitters which use technology should have a choice of whether they are regulated by a state or federal regime.

It is imperative for regulators and lawmakers to approach the online small business loan market with care and an understanding of how these lenders expand access to credit.

Fed up with the hassles of applying for a multitude of state licenses and relying on bank partners, fintech firms are increasingly interested in applying for a national bank charter — and federal regulators are considering ways to accommodate them.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss's Gemini Trust Company LLC has gotten a New York State regulator's blessing to trade another kind of cryptocurrency on its bitcoin exchange.

Most of the largest banks are participating in industrywide blockchain standard-setting activities, trying to determine which use cases would improve upon existing technology. That's backward, says Chain, a startup whose product is already being used by banks.

TransferWise, which has been developing an anti-bank brand, now says it wants to partner with banks to expand its reach in the U.S.

Entrepreneurs and other financial-technology experts give some common-sense advice including: watch your pennies, live in the right places and choose your associates carefully.

Deloitte is partnering with five blockchain companies as it seeks practical uses for the emerging technology in its consulting business.