The Most Powerful Women in Banking

Wech worked her way up over the past 16 years from a trainee through the retail division, becoming a branch manager, the manager of multiple locations, a team leader and now a regional head for business banking.

Shalishali joined the $59.7 billion-asset bank through an early talent program, which exposed her to different aspects of banking. She ended up starting off as a credit analyst before taking on other roles, such as a private wealth advisor and a commercial banker. 

After earning her engineering degree at MIT, Wall Street beckoned Jessica Payne, who was recruited into Citi's analyst class. Three years later, rather than use the MBA she earned at Harvard Business School to go in another direction, she eagerly returned to investment banking.

With 16 years at the company, Niemczyk is an Ally lifer. She is currently a senior director of invest and deposits business operations and analytics at the bank.

The payment company is connecting installment lenders with borrowers who may be looking for a product instead of a specific company.

Lewis Rinaudo Cohen is the co-chair of the digital assets and emerging technology practice group at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP, known as CahillNXT, which focuses on the use of blockchain, crypto assets and tokenization across all aspects of capital markets and all areas of economic activity. Lewis is a frequent public speaker on the topic of blockchain and the financial markets, and has been included for many years as a "Band 1" practitioner by leading independent firm Chambers and Partners USA.

Jason Rozovsky is head of legal at Interop Labs, the initial developer of the Axelar network, the Web3 interoperability platform. Jason has worked in the blockchain space for nearly a decade, having previously been global legal lead for blockchain at Accenture and assistant general counsel at R3, an enterprise blockchain company.

U.S. Bancorp is splitting its payment services business in half; Flagstar Financial continues to fill out its leadership with an eye toward tech and risk management; First Horizon authorized an additional $350 million in stock buybacks for its $1 billion share repurchase plan; and more in this week's banking news roundup.

The agency said VyStar customers took on fees and credit report demerits because they could not access banking functions for months following an attempted upgrade.