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.

Pandemic strategies have shown a ramp up in automation contributes to resilience, says Nvoicepay's Lauren Ruef.

In this Leaders episode, Daniel Wolfe of PaymentsSource sits down with Chris Giamo, head of commercial bank at TD, to discuss the next phase of small business stimulus and how banks can play a more active role with the small business community.

COVID-19 has shown us that technology can rapidly evolve to meet customer needs, in areas from contactless payments to digital banking to mobile wallets. However, we still see great disparities when it comes to the use of contactless and digital banking by low- to moderate-income (LMI) workers. The question is, will emerging tech in the post-COVID economy provide an opportunity to include new people in the financial system-- or leave them even further behind?

The Paycheck Protection Program has about $8 billion remaining, with those funds earmarked for community development financial institutions, minority depository institutions and other mission-driven lenders.

Two new government reports suggest that U.S. consumers’ fortunes have improved since the start of the pandemic, with bankruptcies falling sharply and fewer people falling behind on bills. But it’s not clear how long the positive trends will sustain themselves as government relief efforts wind down and evictions and foreclosures resume.

Bank of America is devoting more resources to fighting cyberattacks after seeing a jump in threats amid the pandemic.

Security is a constantly changing game, with criminals adopting new strategies and the payment industry and other financial institutions deploying increasingly sophisticated techniques to stop them.

Mobile wallets have seen strong adoption as an in-store payment method in China, but have lagged in appeal in the U.S. until recently. Coronavirus fears have caused many Americans to rethink the mobile wallet’s value proposition.

Long after the pandemic is finally behind us, the many security and financial benefits owners, management companies and fans alike receive from having the technology in place will remain too invaluable to ignore, says Corsight's Rob Watts.

The pandemic has caused dramatic changes in all industries, which adds extra stress on payment companies, says PXP Financial's John Bell.