Digital upstarts like Square, Stripe and PayPal are invading community banks' turf by appealing to local merchants with a mix of electronic payments and lending. Small banks are fighting back by leaning into digital services while maintaining their personal touch.

With today’s generation of home buyers so rooted in a digital world, how will the financial services industry need to change to meet their needs? What new consumer technology will they need to adopt to meet consumers where they are? How will those approaches differ from how things have been done historically in the industry? Join us in a discussion with Blend’s Founder, Nima Ghamsari as we chat through how banks and financial institutions need to think through these questions.

Some big tech firms “have sought to gain greater control over the flow of money in our economy,” Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra told senators. His comments came after the agency demanded information from large tech companies about their payment offerings.

The California bank sued a former executive for allegedly taking trade secrets and using them to build a rival fintech. A recent interim ruling frees Aeldra Financial to move ahead with fundraising while the case continues.

Piermont Bank in New York expects to double its $347 million of assets in a year by extending working capital to financial technology companies. MainStreet Bancshares in Virginia is taking a different approach, hoping a new banking-as-a-service offering will help investors see it as more cutting-edge.

The state has a poor track record of managing customer-facing operations. It’s difficult to see an upside in the current push for a state-run bank — especially when neobanks are already offering the same services it would provide.

After Visa's deal to acquire Plaid fell through as a result of regulatory pressure, the data aggregator found new fintech partners including Square and Dwolla to support an account-to-account transfer service.

The 44 large bank and insurance company partners of the Fintech Innovation Lab are inviting startups whose technology can help them manage cybersecurity threats as well as handle climate change metrics and other growing needs to join the lab's next cohort.

Government must adapt supervision to account for fintechs, cryptocurrencies and other innovations. Otherwise it could contribute to a debacle like when it failed to grasp the impact that new financial instruments such as money market funds would have on traditional financial institutions.

The bank says it's an investor in and will refer clients to Trovata, which gathers transaction data directly from multiple banks to automate cash reporting, forecasting and analysis for midsize and large companies.

JAM Fintop's Banktech fund, which is backed by community banks, has invested in Monit, a small-business predictive analytics company. Two of the banks have expressed interest in using its product.

Nonfungible tokens, which provide proof of ownership in the digital world, are booming. Payment companies are betting they will require payment rails to fund high-value purchases and attract new customers for loyalty marketing.

When the social network went down, it took its entire commerce platform with it. The incident adds to recent data management snafus, and raises doubts about whether the company can build enough trust to succeed in financial services, according to technology experts.

Many of the application programming interfaces that help banks and fintechs share data predate the law that established open banking on the Continent.

Even with an industry-driven standard in place, some institutions still resist parting with client information.

American banks need the kind of clear rules European institutions have enjoyed for several years if they're to become leaders in sharing consumer data with fintechs.

“We've put a goal there that's very specific, and we're very loud about where we are on the path to it and how we're getting there,” Fitzsimmons said. 

In addition to merger work and a data center consolidation, Guild’s combined team has been busy with several major tech initiatives this year.

Executives from banks, credit unions, card issuers and investment firms at American Banker's Card Forum discussed ways the public's embrace of digital transactions and credit alternatives like buy now/pay later is shaping everything from products to business strategies.