Coronavirus

The immediate lockdown of the nation’s economy in response to attempts to flatten the coronavirus infection curve has had a widespread impact on the revenues of all businesses, particularly small ones that are more susceptible to economic disruptions.

Lenders stock up on masks, Plexiglas barriers and cleaning supplies; lawmakers hope recent fixes will attract more borrowers, but small businesses remain wary after constant changes.

As innovation proceeds faster than expected, small firms will need to work with larger firms to meet the new demand, sayd DealRockit's David Carmell.

The coronavirus dealt a double blow to procurement, cutting off both goods and money. Banks and e-commerce firms are relying on partnerships to tweak payment tools to rescue the market.

As revenue-starved retailers fall further behind on rent payments, landlords' cash flow will be strained, and defaults on commercial real estate loans could rise.

The Federal Housing Administration's move to insure loans with forbearance could help support homeownership opportunities constrained by the coronavirus if one change was made to it, trade groups said.

The central bank is only now nearing the launch of the credit facilities after the effort was announced in April. But Chairman Jerome Powell said loans have been available through other means.

Members of the Small Business Committee signaled backing for broadening Paycheck Protection Program access for the smallest companies, encouraging participation by nonbank lenders and other improvements.

In wealth management and consumer lending, banks are starting to win back clients they had been losing to startups.

The ATM industry was already mired in the painful transition away from hardware to digital technology, and now it must try to persuade consumers and merchants that cash isn’t unsafe to handle.

After initially processing the loans manually, the Minnesota bank turned to "low code" software to build the electronic forms and workflows needed to approve loan applications. The result: a more than fivefold increase in the number of loans it could process in a day.

Accountants, as well as lawyers and consultants, who helped small businesses apply for emergency relief funds through the Paycheck Protection Program want to be compensated. Are they entitled to be?

A blueprint that includes more CRA and tax credits for lower-income African Americans would help a demographic disproportionately harmed by the coronavirus pandemic.

The economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic could lead to the ongoing expansion of workers’ access to early, or earned wages (EWA) through advances and instant payouts, including to new types of users.

Mondial Bony has partnered with Credorax to launch the MondialPOS merchant acquiring solution in Italy to address the country’s shift to e-commerce amid coronavirus.

Financial institutions in Oklahoma are collaborating to make mail-in voting easier.

Meeting customers where and how they want to pay is critical for completing transactions, and while retailers want to offer as healthy and safe of a solution as possible, but that can be expensive and complex, says Merchant Advisory Group's John Drechny.

Leaders of companies including Citizens, Comerica and Truist offered more upbeat assessments of loan demand and credit quality than they have in recent weeks. But others warned of weakness in key sectors such as energy and real estate, and said forbearance policies may be hiding potential pitfalls.

Unlike in previous years, the results from two different evaluations will be released simultaneously and will include an assessment of bank capital under coronavirus-related scenarios.

Some lawmakers fear that when forbearance plans and enhanced unemployment coverage expire, the consequences for mortgage borrowers still affected by the pandemic will be severe.