Opinion News from American Banker

Two years on from a federal report recommending the creation of a resolution fund to guard against disorderly bankruptcies, concentration among nonbank mortgage companies has only increased. Congress must take action to avoid a crisis.

The proliferation of so-called "Drainer-as-a-Service" platforms that allow low-skilled attackers to execute sophisticated fraud schemes present a challenge to banks as cryptocurrencies go more mainstream.

The "exorbitant privilege" the U.S. has long enjoyed because of the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency would be supercharged if global adoption of stablecoins leads to greatly increased demand.

Two large proxy advisory firms exert extraordinary and pernicious influence on public companies in the U.S. Congress must act to protect American businesses and the investors whose future relies on them.

It won't be long before bank customers can ask an AI agent to optimize their returns on idle cash. When it happens, banks' net interest income is going to come under direct threat.

Instead of fighting to keep the banking industry unchanged, perhaps it's time for banks to accept that change is inevitable and focus on adapting to remain competitive.

As tokenization increasingly brings instant settlement to transactions, the liquidity buffer that batch settlement has provided for decades is going to shrink and then disappear. Banks will need to rethink liquidity management.

While they may look like a tool for reinforcing customer's connection to their banks, loyalty coalitions present serious risks if they are not constructed properly and monitored continuously.

There are qualities in people and organizations that experts, trying to predict future performance, routinely miss. That includes internal alignment of team members around a strong corporate culture.

The risk facing U.S. banks is not that stablecoins will suddenly siphon deposits through yield alone. It is that deposits will gradually follow utility as financial experiences improve elsewhere.

As the Trump administration signals interest in reforming AML regulations, the industry must come together in support of new rules that promote efficiency and effectiveness in the fight against financial crime.

Once seen as a sleepy corner of the financial services industry, asset servicing has become increasingly important for banks as artificial intelligence, blockchains and a generational transfer of wealth alter the landscape.

The future of banking will see core bank systems rebuilt around artificial intelligence tools that inform decisions about everything from underwriting to compliance. Banks must begin the transition now.

As artificial intelligence agents play an increasingly large role in enterprise finance, traditional credit card rails will be incapable of handling the speed and volume of transactions. Something new is needed.

Efforts to exclude crypto firms from the provision of a number of different core financial services are doomed to fail. The only correct response is to provide the prudential regulation necessary to assure safe and sound operation.

A significant majority of Americans are now living lives of permanent financial stress, and debt delinquency is on the rise. For bankers, that's a recipe for problems with profitability, and perhaps with safety and soundness.

Data collected by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors demonstrates a huge disparity in compliance costs between large and small banks. Policymakers in Washington who claim to support community banks must act to reduce regulatory burden.

The heads of two associations representing military-serving financial institutions argue that the Credit Card Competition Act, as well as the president's demand for credit card rate cuts, would harm troops by reducing access to credit.

The Securities and Exchange Commission appears to have finally acknowledged that tokenized securities are still … securities. For broker-dealers seeking to offer tokenized securities custody, the path forward is now visible.

The Trump administration's decision to launch a criminal investigation of the Federal Reserve chair is a blatant abuse of power that threatens to undermine confidence in the financial stability of the U.S.