BankThink

Morning Scan: Barclays Cuts Back; Marketplace Lenders' Woes

08/26/16

Wall Street Journal

More sales at Barclays: Barclays is ready to announce three separate asset sales as it trims its balance sheet. The British bank is expected to announce the completion of the sale of its Italian retail business in the next few days, followed soon after by its Iberian credit cards unit and its Egyptian franchise. ...

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Restoring Glass-Steagall Won't Solve Anything

08/24/16

Discussions around reinstating the Depression-era law are headline-grabbing, but Glass-Steagall has no merit in our current financial environment.

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A Secure Alternative to Screen Scraping

08/24/16

Screen scraping is an out-of-date way to share transaction data with mobile apps and services. It's high time for banks to invest in OAuth, a protocol that lets customers access their financial data in a portal of their choosing and is secure.

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Morning Scan: Reforming the Fed; New Digital Currency?

08/24/16

Wall Street Journal

Arbitration rule comments: The CFPB received nearly 13,000 comments on its proposed rule that would restrict the use of mandatory arbitration clauses and make it easier for consumers to sue banks. The rule would prohibit financial services companies from using the clauses to block class-action suits, although consumers would still be required to use arbitration to resolve individual disputes. The agency is expected to issue a final rule next year after it reviews...

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It Should Be Obvious Now that Marketplace Lending Is Unsustainable

08/23/16

Companies like Prosper have revolutionized the front end of the consumer lending experience, but they have not proven able to handle even minor financial bumps without running off the road.

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Screen-Scraping Angst Is Overblown

08/23/16

Sure, there is an inherent business tension between banks' digital offerings and personal financial management software. However, the ground rules for making account data available to consumers for use in external software products and apps are in place and the so-called rivalry is overblown.

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Morning Scan: A $500M Idea; Excluding Reserves from Balance Sheets

08/23/16

Wall Street Journal Paying for convenience: More than 20% of bank customers would be willing to pay as much as $3 a month to use their bank's mobile app while about 40% would be in at $1 a month, according to a survey by S&P Global Market Intelligence. Banks could generate as much as $500 million in annual revenue by charging customers, S&P says, with Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase the biggest winners. Â...

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Loosen Reins on Mortgage Insurers for Good of Housing Finance

08/22/16

Despite headwinds working against the mortgage insurance industry, this business could be the catalyst for bringing private capital back to the mortgage market.

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Morning Scan: Bitcoin and Ransomware; Steven Cohen Buys Into Square

08/22/16

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Blame it on bitcoin: Bitcoin may be fueling the recent surge in ransomware attacks, which have quadrupled in the past year to about 4,000 a day, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, "Attacks spiked this year amid the growing use of bitcoin and improved encryption software," the Wall Street Journal said. "Bitcoin is now the preferred payment method of most ransomware infections because it allows users to send and receive money...

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AI's Disruption of Banking Is Inevitable - For Better or Worse

08/19/16

Stakeholders must come together to make sure that artificial intelligence disrupts banking in a manner that incorporates constitutional values and provides responsible banking services to everyone.

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