PayThink

Does an ATM-locator app need to have sex appeal? At first, the design of the new PNC Finder app for the iPhone seems like it might be overkill. But its main feature — an augmented-reality display — is winning over customers.

Banks use phone calls to alert customers of potential fraud — so the fraudsters have responded by tying up their victims' phone lines.

The state Attorneys General need to get a deal done soon, or they — and by extension American homeowners and those who have lost their homes — lose.

Yet another video game company has been targeted by hackers. Square Enix, the company behind the popular Final Fantasy games, said Monday that it would restore its "Square Enix Members" website by yearend. The company took the site offline after discovering that a server had been hacked.

The FDIC's job in this instance is simply to recover as much taxpayer money as possible from a bank failure, not to right the scales of justice, a D&O insurance lawyer says.

The Bailey Building and Loan Association was one of the worst run banks in America. It would have topped the FDIC's problem bank list, if such a list had existed in 1946. In fact it almost certainly would have failed every financial test of today's regulators. The institution was poorly capitalized, its assets were concentrated in a single asset class, and it was a subprime mortgage lender. Of course, it was also a figment of Frank Capra's imagination.

Perhaps 2011 will go down as the year social media finally proved it might live up to some of the hype. So in keeping with that, I thought the best way to memorialize 2011 would be to go back and look at some of the best Twitter posts (tweets) and share them here.

I wanted to take a moment and say thank you to the Credit Union Journal team for all the valuable information you publish. Finance Center FCU has been a subscriber for years and we continually read and share your publication across our management team every week.

Obviously [Lockheed CU's] employees have no clue about what it will take to run their institution in 2013. None of these striking employees belong in the credit union industry. Let them work at the bank-that's what they're there for.

As much as I would like to offer tidings of comfort and joy, I fear that 2012 is shaping up to be the year of extreme risks. These risks may not materialize into live problems, but it is best that bankers be prepared, particularly since at least some of the rotten plums are already baked into the Christmas pudding.