Economy

President Obama's 2016 budget plan tackled a host of big picture items for banking, including Dodd-Frank reform, CFPB funding, cybersecurity, as well as FHA and SBA lending. Here's what banks need to know.

More than a decade after spearheading the direct banking model of offering high-yield savings accounts exclusively online at ING Direct, Arkadi Kuhlmann is trying to reboot international banking for the smartphone.

Opus Bank in Irvine, Calif., has received regulatory approval to form a broker-dealer subsidiary that will expand its merchant banking capabilities.

By linking mobile payments with money transfers, Western Union created a new use for Apple's mobile wallet. But it must still rigidly conform to the basic requirements of an Apple Pay transaction — without a bank account, there is no payment.

Small business alternative lender Biz2Credit has added Fortis Payments to its roster of payment partners.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency will require nonbank mortgage firms to meet minimum liquidity and net worth standards to curb risks to taxpayers from the rapidly expanding industry.

Federal Reserve Gov. Daniel Tarullo says "shadow banking" is another source of systemic concern for bank regulators

While Visa and MasterCard aren't yet applying the same level of pressure for tokenization security as they are for EMV-chip cards, the card networks' CEOs are clear that this technology is their new expectation for e-commerce.

In yet another revision of its mortgage rules, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed making it easier for small and rural lenders to make "qualified mortgages." Industry representatives said the changes are poised to make a big difference.

The telco-backed mobile wallet Softcard is at a significant crossroads. Though it once saw the debut of Apple Pay as an opportunity, Apple may actually be edging its rivals out of the market, and Softcard's next move will decide not only its own fate but also the strategies of the banks and merchants that could benefit from its technology.

New York Community Bancorp wants Washington to raise the asset size for systemically important financial institutions, but in the meanwhile its asset sales to stay under the threshold helped to boost profits and its CEO is pursuing possible M&A deals.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday proposed a series of regulatory relief measures for small institutions, especially those in rural areas, to help them provide credit while they try to follow the agency's tough mortgage rules.

MasterCard's Antonio Corro is building a new payments system in Myanmar, a country that's springing to economic life after decades of military turmoil and political unrest.

The government has added further protections to reverse mortgage borrowers' spouses who are not named in the loan agreement, but placed conditions under which they are ineligible for older protections.

Marketplace lenders are seizing on current investor enthusiasm after the December public listing of LendingClub. SoFi and Funding Circle have set new origination targets, and new capital markets deals may help replace bank credit lines for Blue Elephant Capital Management and perhaps others.

Banks partnering with prepaid card providers face the potential of higher deposit insurance fees and other ramifications from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. classifying accounts as "brokered."

Arch Capital Group is repurposing a subsidiary to insure mortgages that are headed for private securitizations. Insuring such loans separately from the unit that works with Fannie and Freddie lets Arch offer more favorable terms to lenders.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council's proposed changes to its process for designating nonbanks as systemically important are being widely praised as helpful and responsive, but many stakeholders say that they do not go far enough.

Apple Pay has secured a dominant position at the point of sale, with two thirds of all U.S. contactless payment volume coming through Apple's new mobile wallet, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook. But this may not be the boost to mobile payments that many experts have long predicted.

These days, salespeople expect more technology and flexible compensation from their ISOs, industry sources report.