The pandemic has spurred a major push toward speedier digital transactions, making it an expeditious time for the Faster Payments Council to expand the range of input it gets to expand its mission.

The stock market has reached record highs despite rampant unemployment, recession and a global pandemic. What gives?

The Senate Banking Committee met Wednesday to review central bank lending facilities such as the Main Street Lending Program, which provides bank-issued loans to middle-market firms. But some lawmakers on the panel said the focus of pandemic relief has been misplaced.

Only one of the 118 loans bought by the Federal Reserve through Aug. 31 was close to the $250,000 minimum in the rescue program, aimed small to midsize businesses hurt by the pandemic.

Even though financial institutions have "slightly" stepped up assessments of diversity practices, "we are not satisfied with the level of responsiveness,” a senior Federal Reserve official said in congressional testimony.

The central bank said it had miscalculated the loss rates for certain public welfare investments, which led to incorrect capital requirements for the two companies.

With consumers and merchants alike sharing the need to be paid faster, the case for adopting real-time payments globally has quickly advanced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell announced a new approach to monetary policy Thursday that takes a more relaxed stance on inflation and on its view of how low U.S. unemployment can go.

The agencies completed steps to ease a community bank capital measure temporarily and to delay a new credit-loss accounting standard.

Citigroup’s $900 million payment blunder in a normally low-profile part of the financial market dominated by a handful of banks has experts wondering if regulators will uncover a deeper problem.

The Fed's faster payments platform may well roll out in three or four years, but by then it will already be outdated.

The Federal Reserve could ease capital rules, foster the creation of special-purpose banks and take other steps to strengthen minority communities and businesses without legislation being sought in Congress — if it has the will to do so, experts say.

The global digital currency race has heightened the threat to traditional monetary policy and the dollar’s dominance, enough for the Federal Reserve of Boston to make a concerted effort to keep pace.

With big banks largely shunning the program, small banks see an opening to grab more market share in commercial lending.

The bank has begun briefing regulators about how it mistakenly sent payments to creditors of Revlon, the financially strapped cosmetics company. Citi has also filed a lawsuit against Brigade Capital Management seeking to recoup $175 million it sent to Brigade on Revlon's behalf.

The Fed's faster payments platform may well roll out in three or four years, but by then it will already be outdated.

The federal banking agencies clarified that minor violations of Bank Secrecy Act rules will typically not result in a cease-and-desist order.

Appearing to support decentralized systems, the acting comptroller of the currency said on a podcast that "the ultimate public ownership of the payment rails is when you have a network, like the internet, of interconnected institutions and computers."

The head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston said the central bank had acquired stakes in 32 business loans as of Monday, four times the amount from two weeks earlier.

Under a rule issued in March, banks will build an additional capital cushion that is determined by their performance in the annual tests.