Disruptors

The era of banks and fintech companies cozying up to each other is in full bloom. Fintechs realize they can better disrupt the industry from within, while banks are looking for partners to help them navigate the digital world. Here's a look at how banks worldwide are buying, investing in and in some cases lending to fintech firms.

Nat Hoopes, executive director of a trade group that represents the chief executives of Wall Street banks, is making the jump to fintech.

Lending Club hired a pair of Wall Street executives to strengthen relationships with investors after many pulled back from buying the loans it arranges online during a tumultuous second quarter.

Artificial intelligence has gotten good enough to do some of the more mundane tasks people perform at banks every day. Whether the trend will kill certain job categories entirely or make a lot of dull work more interesting, or both, is an open debate.

Banks have found a novel way to fend off fintech’s plans to take them down: they are funding it. A new report shows corporate venture capital investors, such as those backed by banks, made up nearly a third of funding in the second quarter.

LoanDepot, a Foothill Ranch, Calif.-based company that offers mortgages, home equity loans and personal loans, has raised $150 million in term debt financing.

Like its peers, the San Francisco-based marketplace lender is struggling to manage the fallout of a sharp reversal in the interest of investors.

At most merchants, mobile wallets have been a solution in search of a problem. But at the pharmacy, every customer already has a problem — possibly several problems — they want to address before they even think about how they want to pay.

The embattled firm is offering financial incentives in an effort to kick-start lending, but compliance-focused banks have been slow to respond.

The marketplace lender OnDeck Capital is sticking with its lend-and-hold strategy even though the practice contributed to a second consecutive quarterly loss.

The U.S. is steadily building the foundation of a nationwide faster payments system, but not all of the pieces are connected. Many of the elements developed independently, with influence from across the globe.

Fintech firms and millennial-focused advisers are providing advice on student loan refinancing, with the expectation that over time it will eventually lead to new business, in the form of brokerage and retirement accounts.

Many times, bitter rivals must set aside their differences for the common good. This has happened a lot in recent years as the payments industry adjusts to the fast pace of innovation.

Hedgeable sees the peer-to-peer business and personal loans as an alternative to fixed-income investments that are traditionally offered through exchange-traded funds.

Now that Verizon has nailed down a deal to buy Yahoo's search and advertising business, it's starting to look a lot more like Google — and it might even have the tools to take a second stab at the payments industry.

Visa and Mastercard both face the prospect of becoming "dumb pipes" as other companies innovate on top of their networks. To combat this trend, both are taking steps to be major players in the digital economy.

Of the 10 fintech startups that pitched their wares at startupbootcamp FinTech New York on Wednesday, half plan to sell their software to banks. Only a few vie to take on established players.

N26, a Berlin startup that offers financial services directly to consumers, said Thursday it's received a German banking license that will let it offer a fuller range of products across Europe.

Wells Fargo plans to pilot a digital advice platform in early 2017, according to a high-ranking executive at the wirehouse.

The fragmentation of the U.S. regulatory system and uncertainty around what agencies will regulate fintech firms could slow down innovation.