PayThink

Lawmakers' move to cap the Federal Reserve's capital surplus to help pay for highway improvements made the central bank one of the least capitalized financial institutions in the country.

Lawmakers opted for broadening the focus and makeup of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, but a more focused systemic risk regulator would have had a better chance of success.

In comparison to the countries that have already implemented faster payments, the U.S. market contains a far larger and more diverse array of financial institutions that would have to implement the system in order for ubiquity to be achieved.

Community bank executives need to focus on these three areas in order to embrace change and cater to younger, tech-savvy customers.

Visa and MasterCard have a huge share of the European card markets, but that popularity is attracting increasingly sophisticated online criminals and nimble competitors.

To curb the loss of female talent, one Wall Street firm plans to remedy the pay gap. Islamic finance is notoriously male-dominated, but one country is an exception. Australia's ANZ Bank is inspiring a lot of soul-searching on sexism in the financial services industry. Would things improve with SEC reporting on diversity? Or do we need quotas?

The Federal Housing Finance Agency's decision to exclude captive insurance companies from Federal Home Loan Bank membership makes the FHLB system like a private country club.

Disruption in credit scoring is healthy, but the new models touted by marketplace and other alternative lenders are still untested, especially about how loans will perform in a downturn.

Other countries have already lowered interest rates below zero, and the financial stability concerns of such a policy taking shape in the U.S. should not be dismissed.

Electronic payment automation delivers significant time and cost savings and can actually turn accounts payable into a profit center through card rebates.