Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

The Cleveland Fed president dismissed concerns about the central bank's faster payments system competing with The Clearing House's network, while saying that a national digital currency is less of a necessity in the U.S. than in other countries.

Fed researchers purported to show that consumers who use peer-to-peer loans have bad financial outcomes, but questions quickly emerged about the data they used.

Evidence that the credit characteristics of online installment borrowers at the time of repayment are consistently worse than at the time of borrowing should be a sobering thought for lenders that have not been fully tested in a credit downturn.

Consumers who have borrowed from online lenders owe more and have lower credit scores than similarly situated consumers who have not used online lenders, according to a study released Thursday by the Cleveland Fed. The provocative findings seem likely to spark intense debate.