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Some of the nation's largest merchants are rolling out branded cards that offer many of the banking services their tens of millions of customers crave — plus loyalty rewards. For banks, the cards may pose a new threat, as well the opportunity to partner and reach new segments of the population.

JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo kicked off bank earnings season with decidedly mixed results. Both were solidly profitable, but their methods for remaining so suggest that smaller rivals may have a hard time following suit. American Banker editors discuss the results and what they say about the industry's prospects for the year ahead.

Vanity "payment names" could simplify the moving of money for consumers, employers, billers and financial institutions alike, argues Dave Birch of Consult Hyperion.

The large U.S. banks are being shortsighted when they protest that upgrading the payments system, as the Federal Reserve wants them to do, will require short-term as well as long-term payoffs, argues consultant Dave Birch. Banks in other countries have benefitted greatly from modernization projects, he says, pointing to the examples of M-Pesa in Kenya and Faster Payments in the U.K.