PayThink

Banks that drive customers away with pre-recession practices should clean up their act or get ready for competitors to use their missteps against them.

The number of companies that have entered into the merchant cash advance business has grown rapidly over the past year, since it can provide an additional source of income beyond payment transaction fees. An industry that seemed all but dead in 2008 has re-emerged and may be stronger than ever.

Creating a more efficient way to do the same old thing isn't enough, says David Gerbino. Banks need to reconstruct some of their basic deposit products to truly innovate.

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

Biometrics once seemed worlds away from mainstream use. But as this category of security technology gains momentum, has its time as a bank account authentication tool finally come?

Albert Einstein once said, "If I had an hour to solve a problem, I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions."

American Bancorporation was the first-ever bank holding company thrown into bankruptcy by the holders of its trust-preferred securities. Regulators may be able to avoid similar bankruptcies if more flexibility is shown in allowing holding companies to access capital to pay off creditors.

Of all the presenters at CO-OP's recent THINK Conference, perhaps no one gave CUs more to think about than Gary Vaynerchuk.

The financial industry should focus on creating new methods of identification, authentication and privacy protection that ward off fraud while keeping consumer inconvenience to a minimum.

The regulatory focus must shift from prohibiting undesirable risk behavior to changing the incentives that cause that behavior.