Bank technology

Ever since the financial crisis, starting a bank from scratch has been hard. But opening a digital-only de novo bank is an especially tall order.

London has emerged as a mecca for fintech in the last few years, with more than half of top startups there in financial services or payments. When the U.K. voted in a national referendum on Thursday to leave the European Union, it created a lot of uncertainty for these startups. Here FemTech leaders share their views on how the referendum affects the relationship between banks and fintech and their appetites for collaboration.

The cryptocurrency ecosystem operates on the fringes of tradition, with "initial coin offerings" announced, discussed and carried out largely via online forums and without regulation. The phenomenon is high-risk and should be treated as such.

Credit scores are useful in predicting the likelihood of whether someone will repay a loan. However, banks and others need to provide customers with another number that more accurately assesses their financial health.

The credit card industry's switch to microchips has improved security, but fraudulent online purchases remain a big vulnerability. A new credit card company called Final, which launches Wednesday, is aiming to fix that problem.

The question of whether bitcoin is actually money is at the heart of a case of a man charged with selling $30,000 worth of the virtual currency to an undercover police officer.

Chief Technology Officer David Reilly has had to make major reductions in traditional expenses so Bank of America can afford to collaborate with fintech firms that are developing innovative products the bank craves.

Bankers, fintech entrepreneurs, regulators and other financial services players gathered in New Orleans last week to discuss the future of the industry at American Banker's Digital Banking 2016 conference. Here are some of the highlights of the conference. For more, check out the hashtag #digibank16 on Twitter.

Federal regulations — including the FFIEC's recent mobile security guidelines — have not kept pace with mobile innovation and the security risks users face from smartphone banking platforms.

Even though cybersecurity jobs can offer six-figure salaries, generous signing bonuses and other perks, banks are struggling to find people to hire.

Kroger is suing Visa, alleging the network threatened to raise fees and cut off the supermarket chain from accepting its debit cards.

Citizens Bank's largely millennial student loan applicants were not responding to email and phone communications. So it created a messaging service that mimics the social media they know and love.

The deadline has arrived for mandatory submissions to the Federal Housing Administration's Electronic Appraisal Delivery portal, but as many as one-third of lenders that originate FHA-insured mortgages have yet to use the new system.

Perhaps you read on vacation to escape the financial services grind, or perhaps you read to hone your business craft. Numerous titles on this year's list — recommended by American Banker readers, BankThink contributors, our staff and others — fall somewhere in between. Read about the lives of figures like Elon Musk or Barney Frank. Understand disruption, human error and how to manage stress. Or, perhaps you just want some insight into the sociopath's playbook. It's all here.

The U.K.'s referendum vote to leave the European Union has thrown cold water on London's reputation as a friendly venue for innovation in payments and other industries.

The sheer volume of data that collected by Internet-connected "things" — cars, homes, wearable devices, and yes, refrigerators — could help deepen banks' relationships with customers. But it also adds more avenues for security breaches and raises privacy concerns.

The recent White House fintech summit was helpful in exposing companies to regulators, and vice versa, but we need to strengthen the lines of communications even more.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. Comments are excerpted from reader response sections of AmericanBanker.com articles and our social media platforms.

How Key Private Bank's CEO is looking to transform the business (hint: it has a lot to do with women); algorithms in hiring promise a new way to bring diversity to Wall Street; the CFPB has some work to do in improving its treatment of women and minorities. Plus, Blythe Masters talks blockchain and Merrill Lynch's Racquel Oden talks confidence.

Fourteen years after Jeff Bezos famously put out a memo to all of Amazon's software development teams, ordering them to create application programming interfaces for every program, some bankers say their industry ought to do the same.