Legal issues and news

While remittances may pose higher risks than services like bill pay, they are absolutely necessary in an age of unprecedented migration. It's high time state and federal regulators update the rules to help inspire banks to re-risk.

To jawbone Mexico into paying for the wall, President-elect Trump has threatened to suspend remittances. Such a move would disrupt one of the busiest corridors of money in the world.

Tesco Bank in Edinburgh, Scotland, has refunded 2.5 million pounds (about $3 million) to 9,000 customers who were affected by a large-scale online banking cybertheft last weekend.

While Washington scrambles to make sense of President-elect Donald Trump's victory and Republicans' control of both chambers of Congress, the implications of the 2016 election on the Financial Stability Oversight Council will be swift and severe, analysts say.

WASHINGTON — A group of financial regulators have announced final changes to its ratings system for examining banks' compliance with consumer protection laws. The update to the ratings generally reflects changes in the marketplace since the rating system was adopted in 1980.

As voters in California, Florida and nine other states decide whether to legalize marijuana, the results may force Congress to resolve differences between federal and state laws that have paralyzed much of the banking industry.

WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve's periodic survey of bank loan officers indicates that a decline in banks' share of commercial and industrial lending activity is likely related to nonbanks' ability to outcompete on both price and loan terms.

Tesco Bank has confirmed that over the weekend, some of its customers' accounts were subject to online criminal activity, in some cases resulting in money being withdrawn fraudulently.

Guidance on regulatory expectations is helpful, but it is not yet clear whether such guidance gives financial institutions impetus to onboard or keep clients they perceive to be riskier.

A group of banks is turning to Swift's anti money laundering tools, with a particular eye on "de-risking."

Payment companies are increasingly adopting biometrics to replace more traditional authentication. That's a good move, but it also comes with a whole new set of risks.

Online lenders' struggle with fraud is driving them to join new networks designed to find links between fraudulent loan applications and signs of borrowers trying to obtain multiple loans simultaneously.

The new cryptocurrency allows users to selectively disclose information about their transactions to authorized parties without exposing it to the world. That feature could make blockchains more appealing to financial institutions, but maybe less so for regulators.

The cyberattack on internet service provider Dyn that shut down websites all over the world showed the dangers posed by internet-connected things. That includes many machines commonly used in offices and branches.

If online merchants can keep their sites secure, they stand to make big gains from a consumer base that is overwhelmingly willing to play its part in protecting payment credentials.

When the San Bernardino shooter obtained a loan online, he reportedly used his real name, which wasn't on the government's sanctions-screening list, underscoring the limitations of identity verification technology.

Combining biometrics with device ID, social data, behavior patterns and other factors builds a strong foundation for artificial intelligence to conduct identity proofing and transaction authorization.

The fact that the number of cybersecurity incidents affecting companies is rising at an alarming rate year over year hardly raises eyebrows anymore.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau decried an appeals court ruling last week that found its single-director structure unconstitutional, saying the opinion was "wrongly decided" and had "no basis in the text of the Constitution or in Supreme Court case law."

Fintech circles are abuzz about the possibilities for streamlining compliance work following IBM's deal to buy Promontory. Artificial intelligence software could help separate false positives from true violations, for example, or read and parse through lengthy regulations.