BankThink

Noelle Acheson pulls the bill that would ban the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency into the spotlight and argues that it's overreaching, unnecessary and distracts attention from more pressing privacy issues.

Businesses accepting payments in stablecoins on a public blockchain are making vast amounts of data available to their competitors. For the technology to really take off, a privacy-preserving solution is needed.

The CFPB must unequivocally state that consumers own their financial data and prohibit financial institutions from monetizing access to it. No one, not even the biggest bank in the country, should dictate with whom consumers can share their data.

Theft of paper checks and their use in identity theft constitute a major blind spot in the private sector's fraud detection networks. Banks and regulators need to come together to find solutions.

The banks have invested in gen AI and embedded finance, respectively.

Junk bonds made Michael Milken the most important and richest person on Wall Street. But they caused many large thrifts to fail. Had he listened to his professors and pursued his Ph.D. in 1970, his legacy might have been different.

Slashing capital requirements for the largest banks shows where the Federal Reserve's priorities lie — and it's not with community banks. This will make it even harder for small banks to compete with their larger peers.

We've just lived through a repeat of Operation Chokepoint, the federal effort to deny banking services to disfavored companies and individuals. We must know the full story so it can never happen again.

Noelle Acheson highlights how last week's White House crypto document and the SEC's announced Project Crypto are not just about supporting digital assets — they're also about an overhaul of traditional finance.

As stablecoins and related products gain traction in the U.S., bankers are going to have to face the fact that their current anti-money-laundering controls simply aren't up to the task anymore.