Opinion News from American Banker

As banking customers' expectations for digital experiences rise and fintech competition grows, the cloud has become essential to staying relevant.

Until a regulatory perimeter is established, banks should tread carefully — and so should everyone else.

If you are still thinking of blockchains as slow, clunky and expensive, do not feel badly. As is the story of many emerging technologies, they evolve quickly.

The Trump administration's plan to shift $1.6 trillion in student loans could include a sale to a private buyer. If that's the case, any potential purchaser has some serious due diligence to undertake.

What if the guiding narrative of 2,000 years of human history was a slow march toward the worship of money? A new book by Paul Vigna argues that we could fix this problem if we declared an old-fashioned jubilee and simply erased all debts.

The Treasury Department is claiming extensive authority to pry into the private financial information of Americans on the flimsiest of pretexts. It's time for the courts to step in.

What does a movie about managing an unruly honky-tonk bar have to do with banking? When it comes to setting examples for corporate culture, maybe a lot more than you think.

Only by facing the realities of geopolitical uncertainty head-on can we hope to preserve the integrity of the global financial system and enable the flow of capital that underpins prosperity everywhere.

Because of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's onerous regulation governing prepaid products, Americans who rely on them as their primary personal banking tool are being denied access to features available to users of similar products, such as checking accounts.

Everyone should be concerned that the sitting president and his family are using crypto for political advantage and personal financial gain. Democrats can call out crypto grifters while supporting sensible policy.

Active collaboration, both among fintechs and between the industry and regulators, is the surest route to a future in which compliance obligations address real threats while allowing companies to thrive.

Setting an artificial deadline for approving bank mergers will result in hasty, ill-considered decisions. The potential damage to consumers and communities far outweighs the possible benefits.

U.S. banks are sorted into different regulatory regimes based on asset-size thresholds established in another era. Those classifications need to be recalibrated and indexed to inflation.

Legacy payment systems won't cut it as autonomous software agents begin transacting and collaborating at scale. New payment rails that take advantage of blockchain technology will be vital in the future.

Engineering an orderly transition toward greater currency diversification is urgent. It would strengthen financial resilience and help sustain international economic integration.

The benefits of open banking are obvious and significant for consumers — especially those underserved by the current marketplace. Bankers and regulators should work to speed up its implementation.

The next generation of enterprise technology will be both intelligent and decentralized. The rise of agentic AI confirms this vision, but it also challenges us to think bigger.

New regulations implementing the Community Reinvestment Act are likely to run into trouble unless they take into account the priorities of the Trump administration and its efforts to streamline the federal government.

Ending the separation of banking and commerce would open the door to dangerous concentrations of power and influence, and would threaten financial and economic stability as well as access to credit for consumers and Main Street businesses.

When supposed "fraud" becomes the headline, real solutions get pushed to the margins. In the case of housing, the real crisis is about housing affordability and supply.