Economic news

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell outlined four qualities a hypothetical digital currency in the U.S. must have while adding that no final decision has been made on whether to proceed with creating one.

Scott Colbert, executive vice president and chief economist at Commerce Trust Co., will discuss the Federal Reserve's monetary policy decision and where they go from here.

Several central banks and the Bank for International Settlements have developed prototypes for a common digital currencies platform that has the potential to make cross-border payments more efficient.

Jamaica plans to give $16 of free money to the first 100,000 citizens who use its soon-to-be-launched Jam-Dex digital currency.

No one liked it when interest interest rates hit 21% in the early 1980s, but the actions of the Federal Reserve under Paul Volcker helped save the U.S. economy from true catastrophe. That kind of leadership is lacking in today’s Washington.

Roughly two dozen countries have issued central bank digital currencies or have pilots underway. But until financial services firms strengthen the security of their mobile apps, these payment tools are unlikely to gain widespread acceptance.

The country that gets it right first will see rapid business and job creation, attract the world’s best and brightest minds and set the standard other nations will follow.

There’s no universal case for central-bank digital currencies, according to International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, who urged policymakers to carefully weigh trade-offs as financial innovation enters a new phase.

A bipartisan group of House Financial Services Committee members says nonbanks as well as insured depository institutions should be allowed to issue cryptocurrencies pegged to U.S. dollars. That stance is a notable departure from financial regulators' recommendations.

By the end of the year, if it can clear regulatory and technical hurdles, the bank plans to launch tokenized dollars people could use to buy anything on the internet.

The work of creating a possible digital dollar inched ahead Thursday with research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston into the code that could eventually support such a currency.

The Troy, Michigan-based bank is looking for companies already innovating across the various aspects of the home finance business.

Blazing demand for leveraged loans is allowing companies to reduce borrowing costs by tinkering with a provision many viewed as key to weaning the industry off the London interbank offered rate.

A group of community banks and two major trade associations have formed a partnership with and invested in the fintech NYDIG to offer the service on the banks’ mobile apps by midyear. The banks say it will help them generate revenue and retain customers interested in cryptocurrency.

Business inventories, a key indicator of potential loan demand, are expected to swing upward this year as supply chain bottlenecks finally crack open, according to a panel of economists.

New York Community Bank and Synovus Bank are among the founding members of the group, which will use the US Dollar Forward stablecoin on the Provenance blockchain.

A U.S. central bank digital currency is coming, and what form it takes could spell opportunity — or trouble — for the banking industry.

Large banks explored the concept more than five years ago before quietly moving on. The advent of stablecoins and general acceptance of blockchains have helped make it more practical for some regionals.

With prices increasing faster than they have since the 1990s, the Federal Reserve appears poised to tighten monetary policy. Top industry executives are worried about the chances of either a recession or runaway inflation, depending on whether the central bank moves too quickly or too slowly.

Research shows the number of fraudulent transactions and dollar amounts involved are soaring as merchants increasingly go digital. Credit card and other companies are expected to more than double what they invest in AI and other tech to fortify their systems.