PayThink

Many people in Brazil don't have bank accounts-but they do have smartphones. These qualities, in combination with favorable regulations, make the country likely to adopt mobile payments in a big way.

Appointing a chief ethics officer can help banks maintain their integrity and foster public trust. Banks should also develop decision processes that explicitly address the question of whether they should do something, as opposed to whether they can.

Following the disclosure by a name brand retailer that their point-of-sale (POS) system had been breached, shoppers outside one of the retailer’s brick and mortar locations unanimously told a television reporter that cash was the safest way to pay in-person.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week.

Bank employees will inevitably make mistakes. Lenders need to invest in people and technology to reduce their impact.

Total holiday sales are expected to reach $863 billion in 2014, up from $822 billion last year. That is a staggering amount of money, and the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas make or break a sales year for large and small businesses alike.

Most big companies achieve success by squeezing vendors, lowering prices, improving efficiency and giving consumers what they want. But in the topsy-turvy world of banking, the most disliked financial institutions end up at the top of the food chain.

Almost a year after the Volcker Rule was finalized, banks still have questions about which regulators are taking the lead on the rule and how the supervisory and enforcement process will work.

For the last decade, year-on-year the payments industry has predicted the shift of mobile payments to the mainstream.

Recent technological advancements are forcing banks to change the way they do business while staying true to the customer relationships that determine their success.