PayThink

The buzzy credit card consolidator, at least in its initial incarnation, doesn’t render wallets redundant or, even, allow the consumer to do anything they can’t already.

Government officials hope to squeeze the giants down to size while executives are counting on thriving with modified business models. Reality lies somewhere in the middle.

The risk retention provision remains one of the top unfinished items for regulators implementing the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. Regulators' second proposal may be more popular than the original, though it still leaves banks wary.

In seeking to prevent future financial contagion, the U.S. may have gone too far in regulating the mortgage industry, cutting millions of potential buyers out of the real estate market.

Seeking to narrow the range of activities in which well-capitalized and well-managed bank holding companies can engage is a mistaken endeavor. Prohibiting activities will lessen competition, increase risk and raise costs for customers.

As a fast, low-cost payment system, Bitcoin provides healthy competition for legacy banks. It's also a bulwark for financial privacy and freedom of speech.

As a fast, low-cost payment system, Bitcoin provides healthy competition for legacy banks. It's also a bulwark for financial privacy and freedom of speech.

The same thing that doomed communism will likely undermine Bitcoin: the fantasy that a protocol, a procedure, a network, an algorithm can neutralize the ugly selfish traits of human beings.

With their regulatory status, refined customer identity procedures and global infrastructure, banks could offer bitcoin exchange services and lead the modernization of financial services. Instead, they’re freezing Bitcoin entrepreneurs’ accounts.

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