Retail & Commercial

With the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency evaluating the possibility of a nationwide charter for certain fintech firms, state regulators are voicing concerns that a charter could cut into their authority.

The longtime chairman and chief executive of Cathay General Bancorp will relinquish his CEO title this fall and the company's bank president is set to succeed him.

Blockchain technology is often suggested as an answer to the financial world's security problems. Banks on the Swift network are being hacked? Put those international wire-transfer instructions on a blockchain. Card-not-present fraud is up? Well then, merchants should just let people pay with bitcoin. Problem solved.

Banking activity clung to a modest level of expansion in July according to the latest reading of American Banker's Index of Banking Activity, edging up from a relatively weak reading a month earlier.

The IBA Composite Index rose to 55.4 in July compared to 54.9 in June. That June reading had been the weakest for the IBA since January.

A noteworthy contributor to the gain came from a rise in the component that tracks real estate conditions across respondents' local markets. That component climbed to a reading of 57.3, up from 54.2 in June, with bankers in the Northeast and West signaling the strongest improvements.

The July survey was not uniformly positive however. Respondents continue to report pressure on pricing for new loan business, and the July survey also saw some falloff in the pace of growth for consumer-loan applications, particularly in the South.

In addition, bankers continue to express frustration with net interest margins, a concern unlikely to abate soon given uncertainty about the Federal Reserve's plans for interest rates over the next few months.

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Eddie Bauer acknowledged that a data breach compromised credit cards used in its 350 stores during the first six and a half months of 2016.

Stakeholders must come together to make sure that artificial intelligence disrupts banking in a manner that incorporates constitutional values and provides responsible banking services to everyone.

Previous natural disasters in the Gulf region have taught banks like MidSouth, Regions and Hancock how to swing into action to help customers and manage sudden risks.

The regional bank has consolidated all of its digital operations under a single leader. Find out what he thinks about customer expectations, bots, fintechs and the coming convergence of digital banking.

Citizens Community Bancorp in Eau Claire, Wis., said it plans to close four branches in Walmart stores in mid-November.

People hold up blockchain as the answer to many security issues, including Swift-related hacks and card-not-present fraud. But distributed ledgers have vulnerabilities, too.