PayThink

Mixed messaging on fin tech doesn't just emanate from the halls of Congress. It can also be found at the regulatory level as well.

We can all agree that financial education is one of the most significant and impactful ways that credit unions set themselves apart from other financial institutions.

We are all happy to see low unemployment numbers, but it also puts human resources in the spotlight when it comes to recruitment, retention.

Unlike Wells Fargo's unauthorized account openings, concerns in 2003 about banks discounting rates on loans in exchange for customers buying investment-banking products were less about consumer protection than the potential harm to credit quality and competition.

Millennials hate banks so much, they’d rather go to the dentist than listen to what banks have to say. And digital payment alternatives are taking advantage.

Washington is hopping with news this time around. It's been a blistering week for Wells Fargo, and Maxine Waters, Carolyn Maloney and Elizabeth Warren are among those using scathing rhetoric about the bank to try to kill Dodd-Frank reform efforts. Speculation is that both presidential candidates are looking to Silicon Valley to fill key posts in their administration, and talk of Sheryl Sandberg as Treasury Secretary is growing louder. Also, check out the "amplification" strategy women in the White House are using to help their voices get heard at important meetings.

Increasingly, our conversations about digital banking are only about technology. We must expand our dialogue to include ways to make digital banking empathetic.

For large banks, the risks of partnering with marketplace lenders do not matter. But small community banks can't afford to partner with competitors angling to poach their customers.

"Rent-seeking" is a widely recognized economics term that refers to when people or groups try to obtain economic benefits for themselves through a subsidy in the political arena. In Washington, the term has special significance. Special-interest groups regularly try to gain subsidies by securing a special regulation that disadvantages competitors.

With the risk-taking culture at big banks — including that which contributed to the Wells Fargo fiasco — it's a good thing the House bill to weaken Dodd-Frank will never become law.