Economic news

From China to the Bahamas, central banks are rushing to create digital currencies that could be used for everything from attending the Olympics to helping the unbanked. Here are some notable initiatives.

The pace of the U.S. recovery picked up somewhat in the past two months, sparking price pressures as businesses contended with worker scarcity and rising costs, the Federal Reserve said.

When people stopped using Wag's core business during the pandemic, the company added multiple technologies to allow it to sell pet food, offer digital training and provide other services. Those same upgrades will stay in place as former clients come back.

Development and regulatory costs would be so high that the largest firms would need significantly more scale to justify the investment, according to new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

While cryptocurrencies could have benefits, they have “not served as a convenient way to make payments, given, among other factors, their swings in value,” said the head of the Federal Reserve. He also detailed imminent Fed research on a central bank digital currency.

How digital capabilities are supporting small business operations amid disruption

Federal Reserve Vice Chair Randal Quarles has made it clear that banks failing to make the transition away from the benchmark rate could face supervisory consequences.

The next step for retailers is to bring consumers the benefits and experience of being in store, from the comfort of their home, says FIS' Dan Brames.

As contactless payments skyrocket, the chance for fraud gets larger, says ClearSales's Rafael Lourenco.

Silvergate Bank CEO Alan Lane, former HSBC executive Stuart Levey and experts at Anchorage Bank are helping Facebook make its digital currency more palatable to regulators and potential bank partners.

Five payments of $20 seems less detrimental to a wallet than a one-time $100 fee, says Four's Chaim Lever.

The urgency to streamline processes during the pandemic accentuated how digitization can also drive diversity, fairness and better environmental outcomes, says Microsoft’s Bill Borden.

Chairman Jelena McWilliams said the agency will issue a request for information "to learn more about what banks are doing, what banks are considering doing and what, if anything, the FDIC should be doing in this space.”

Small-bank executives are more optimistic about future loan demand than at any point since 2017, but they have mixed feelings about how to fund upgrades to the nation's roads, bridges and other infrastructure — if at all — according to a new survey by IntraFi Network.

The risk is growing that criminals or hostile nations could use quantum computing to hack into the ledger systems that control bitcoin and other digital currencies.

First Foundation and Suncrest are among the community banks developing platforms that let clients buy, sell and hold increasingly popular digital assets. The goal is to avoid losing business to cryptocurrency exchanges.

The visibility of automated transactions provides a clear view of the flow of transactions, says Hummingbird's Joe Robinson.

Magecart attacks, which target e-commerce websites in order to steal personal data during the checkout process, are picking up steam with cyber attackers, says PermeterX's Ameet Naik.

The risk is growing that criminals or hostile nations could use quantum computing to hack into the ledger systems that control bitcoin and other digital currencies.

A senior White House economic aide said the decision on selecting the next central bank chief will come after a thorough “process.”