Coronavirus

Government records detail dozens of complaints from company staffers related to COVID-19. The documents shed light not only on safety protocols at the nation’s fourth-largest bank, but also on employee relations at a firm that’s been dogged by scandal.

The heads of the six largest banks aimed to promote their COVID-19 relief in testimony to the Banking Committee. Democrats said their efforts were insufficient while Republicans criticized the executives for taking public stances on issues like climate change and voting rights.

In a pandemic-scarred year, boards and compensation committees at 60 large and regional banks relied less on the normal performance metrics and more on qualitative criteria to determine bonus payments.

The Small Business Administration’s sluggish pace in forgiving the biggest Paycheck Protection Program loans is straining relations between banks and some borrowers.

Only 0.9% of mortgage borrowers are currently at least 90 days delinquent. That figure could rise as high as 3.8% once pandemic-related deferrals lapse — still well below the 6% mark reached after the Great Recession, according to research by the New York Fed.

Mastercard will soon bring workers back to its New York City office at least two days a week.

The concept amplifies spending visibility from the center of the business way out to its edges, creating more transparency.

“Bank employees are front-line workers, and the virus is affecting them,” the general secretary of the All India Bank Officers’ Association says.

The heads of the biggest banks have a chance to tout the industry's community outreach during the pandemic. But they can also expect tough questions about the Paycheck Protection Program as well as what banks are doing to address climate change, racial inequities and other hot-button issues.

While the eventual emergence from lockdown will help ease the pressure on overworked compliance departments, there is still an obvious need for tools that will make the anti-money laundering process simpler and stress-free, says SmartSearch's Martin Cheek.