PayThink

The massive data breach of Sony's PlayStation Network hasn't deterred people from using it – 3 million new customers have signed up since the incident was disclosed in April.

Investor's stake in the future of Bank of America shows a boldness that banks now lack.

In the Dodd-Frank Act, Congress included an exemption from the five percent risk-retention requirements applied to residential mortgages. Unfortunately, in their proposal to define what qualifies as a "qualified residential mortgage" under that exemption, regulators included only a very narrow test of borrowers' credit risk.

The Capital One acquisition of ING Direct USA is, as far as we know, the first time size alone has been made an M&A approval criterion for the Federal Reserve.

California is making its data breach notification law stricter. The state's notification law was the model upon which many other states based their notification laws.

Total U.S. demand deposits are around $1 trillion. China and Japan each hold around $1 trillion in U.S. Treasuries.

About 200 digital certificates, which are used to verify the legitimacy of websites, may have been compromised or fraudulently issued in a recent breach, according to new estimates.

Strong opinions abound on the future of bank branches. Will branches be relevant 10 years from now? Will financial technology solutions be able to significantly disrupt the business of banking such that branches, at least as we know them today, become obsolete?

Little has been done to buoy confidence that an economic recovery is at hand. A settlement of the investigations surrounding last year’s robo-signing scandal that, among other things, achieves widespread principal reduction commitments from major servicers, could change that — but only if done carefully.

The banking industry is reeling from a slowdown in the economy that could last years and layoffs in this industry will be severe. Bank of America leads the list with announcing that it will lay off 10,000 employees and UBS is geared to lay off 3,500, however, this round of layoffs will touch not only the large banks, but also community and regional banks.