PayThink

Lack of bank transparency makes it difficult to see the extent of bank exposures to emerging markets and whether financial firms are adequately capitalized to withstand unexpected losses from this market turmoil … or any other.

Federal legislation is needed to enhance cyber-threat information sharing so that good-faith responsive actions and information sharing will not trigger legal liability.

Under current conditions, bank executives would be crazy to hold back. If they get caught, they can pay their way out of the problems with shareholders’ money. And if their misdeeds pay off as expected, the profits will goose their pay.

Contrary to sensationalistic headlines, community banks remain the lenders of choice for small businesses, who appreciate these institutions’ expertise and personal attention.

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

One could imagine a postal bank as a feeder service that brings unbanked consumers into the mainstream financial system and then graduates them to private institutions.

With terrorist attacks, shootings in schools, partisan gridlock in Washington and natural disasters worldwide all vying for headline space, it is difficult to select "the most serious" problems confronting us. But there is no question that the financial abuse of elders belongs on the list.

We applaud the NCUA for affirmatively voting to allow derivative use within the credit union movement.

Scientists spend gigantic dollars searching for proof of the smallest of theories. Physicists on the Large Hadron Collider to find the Higgs particle. Meteorologists on sophisticated computer models to measure the butterfly effect. And yet all of them could save money and time proving how small changes can have large repercussions by looking no further than credit unions.

Benjamin Lawsky, New York's top financial regulator, rarely sounds ambivalent. But when the topic is something as unprecedented and complex as Bitcoin, the big questions appear to give him pause.