BankThink

The Wisdom (Or Lack Thereof) of The DAO

06/01/16

The idea behind The DAO is to act as a decentralized investment fund that leverages the wisdom of crowds. But sometimes the crowd doesn't necessarily offer the wisest counsel.

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Current Approach to Short-Term Credit Doesn't Cut It

06/01/16

We need to adopt a more nuanced view of credit that considers not only the cost of credit, but also the cost of default and the cost of having no credit.

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Strong CFPB Rule Needed Even in Payday-Free States

06/01/16

While existing state laws show that payday lending curbs lead to positive outcomes, those laws will still benefit from a strong Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule.

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Lessons from the Top-Performing Banks

06/01/16

Achieving high performance is a challenge. But these five traits help the elite banks drive such impressive results.

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Morning Scan: Community Banks Enjoy Rebound; Tarullo's Influence

06/01/16

Receiving Wide Coverage ... Return to Form?: Community banks are doing very well, thank you very much, Mr. Dimon. But it's not necessarily a return to the salad days of pre-2008. The Wall Street Journal's ongoing series on the banking industry looks at the state of community banking, and pronounces the sector healthy, but facing serious issues. Â...

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High-Cost Credit Better than No Credit? Not Necessarily

05/31/16

The idea that restricted access to loans for poor-credit borrowers is unequivocally a bad thing is based on industry talking points that don't stand up to real world scrutiny.

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Has Google Removed a Key Barrier to Mobile Onboarding?

05/31/16

Instant Apps could give banks a better option for transitioning customers from a quick and easy account opening to a more robust banking experience.

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Morning Scan: Broad Questions About Banking's Future Amid Pressures

05/31/16

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Banking's Identity Crisis: Banks are in the midst of a period of upheaval, as the industry seeks to reinvent itself amid huge changes in consumer preferences, banking technology and the regulatory landscape. Fintech disruptors will probably be subsumed into the larger banking universe, although their ideas will live in. Ultimately, the old ways of banking will die only when those banks that lived through the financial crisis move on. ...

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A Cautionary Tale from the '80s for Today's Loan Participations

05/27/16

In addition to credit risk from leveraged loans and other types of assets, an added worry for participations is how they would be treated in a failure of the originating bank.

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Flashback: Banks' Disruption Fears, Circa 1994

05/27/16

Well before the mobile payments explosion, incumbents were already focused on how to respond to nonbanks "piggybacking" on banks' payments infrastructure. As the consultant behind a 1994 banking industry report on the threat put it, "there is no time for delay."

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