BankThink

Not only should regulators investigate the timing of OneWest's charitable donations to supporters of its proposed merger with CIT Group, they should encourage both banks to adopt clear CRA benchmarks that would hold them accountable for future investments in local communities.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Not the Best: Bank of New York Mellon agreed to pay $714 million to settle litigation that accused the custody bank of defrauding clients on currency transactions. Stemming from a lawsuit filed in February 2011, the Manhattan U.S. Attorney and the New York State Attorney General said BNY Mellon gave some clients worse prices on foreign currency trades than promised. Put another way, BNY Mellon promised "best execution" of the foreign-currency trades,...

Countries including Brazil, Nigeria, Malaysia and India have proved that there are viable ways to find alternatives to branches, use mobile devices to increase the reach of financial services and roll out government-supported financial inclusion projects.

Before banks close a branch office or make dramatic cuts in the workforce, they should make sure they're prepared for the social media fallout.

Banking is a controlled, regulated environment. Bankers don't like risk. They scrutinize, analyze, quantify and squeeze out as much uncertainty as possible.

But banks have little control over what their online critics broadcast to huge swaths of the population, whether the message is civil and accurate or scurrilous and exaggerated. Banks must reconcile...

Receiving Wide Coverage ...

Facebook 'Likes' Payments: Comes now Facebook to the electronic money-transfer wars. Facebook will let users send money to friends, Romans and countrymen using its Messenger service, the Times, Journal and FT all reported, citing a Facebook blog post. It's Facebook's first foray into peer-to-peer money transfers. The service is free (for now) and a user only has to upload a Visa or MasterCard debit card to her Facebook account. The service will...