Data Sets

It's well known in Washington that August is meant to be a dead time, as lawmakers return to their home states to campaign and regulators take the month off. But last week proved the exception to the rule, with action on mortgage servicing, eminent domain and Basel III. Here are some of the highlights:

Sites like Groupon have captured consumers' attention and loyalty in a way that credit card issuers often dream of. A few savvy payments companies have found ways to benefit from the daily-deals fad.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. As excerpted from the Comments sections of AmericanBanker.com articles.

We asked American Banker readers and staff members to recommend books that changed the way they think about the financial services industry for bankers to take on their end-of-summer vacations.

Investors get paid when a bank is sold. So do the people that run it. Mergers trigger golden parachutes that are usually worth three times a chief executive's salary. CEOs can liquidate equity stakes they have in their banks, or roll them over into the buyer, too. Here's a rundown of CEO pay in some major deals of the first half. (Source: Proxy statements, the companies)Related Articles: CEO Pay Booms in a Year When Stocks Are a Bust, Top Heavy: CEO Pay to Total Payroll Expenses(Image: Thinkstock)

Google added a virtual card option to its mobile wallet this month, and it's far from the first company to realize that virtual accounts can work where conventional cards just don't cut it.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. As excerpted from the Comments sections of AmericanBanker.com articles.

Banks closed 767 more banks than they have opened in the past 12 months, according to SNL Financial. The following five states accounted for roughly a third of the branches lost in the past year.

Jamie Dimon reshuffled his top lieutenants last week. Here's who switched chairs, and who stayed put, in the latest JPMorgan Chase executive overhaul.

The benefits of labor arbitrage are going away and banks are bringing work to stateside outsourcing providers, for several reasons, says Harley Lippman, CEO of IT staffing firm Genesis10.

The Olympics and other attractions are not just proving grounds for athletes — stadiums, amusement parks and concert halls provide the perfect conditions to test new payment technologies.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. As excerpted from the Comments sections of AmericanBanker.com articles.

A brand consultant recently suggested that more banks could put the financial crisis behind them simply by developing new logos and brands. Here are a few financial institutions that have reinvented themselves in recent years.

Add Sandy Weill to the list of industry grandees who want to dismantle financial behemoths. In an appearance on CNBC Wednesday, the former Citigroup chief executive declared that we should probably "go and split up investment banking from banking…have banks do something that's not going to risk the taxpayer dollars." It hardly needs to be said that that is a dramatic reversal for the man widely credited with tearing down Glass Steagall. (He denies that — he says he was just an insurance guy who teamed up with Citicorp long after commercial banks had begun to punch holes through the wall separating them from the securities business). Here is our updated roster of bankers, regulators, policymakers looking to dismember Wall Street as we know it.

It was an insanely busy week in Washington last week, as the CFPB took its first enforcement action, regulators finally designated nonbank systemically important companies and Dodd-Frank turned two. Here were the stories you shouldn't miss:

Visa and MasterCard repeatedly have been targets of legal actions and legislation over their policies. It has cost them and their issuers billions over the years in settlements and lost revenue.

Many high-tech approaches to payments are short-lived. A lucky few get a second chance to disrupt the market.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. As excerpted from the Comments sections of AmericanBanker.com articles.

It's been rough going for banks lately in their dealings with regulators, lawyers and the public. From JPMorgan Chase's London Whale to Montgomery Bank & Trust's missing director, the negative news keeps piling up. Following are 10 American Banker stories from July indicating that, if anything, the industry's already troubled reputation is getting more tarnished by the day.

The consensus around Friday's landmark credit card deal between retailers, Visa and MasterCard is there is no consensus. Click through for immediate - and often conflicting - reactions from bankers, retailers and informed observers.