Midterm fallout, Synchrony's Walmart fight, Waters' banking agenda: Top stories of the week

November 9, 2018 3:37 PM

Representative Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California and ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, center, talks to staff members before a hearing with John Stumpf, chief executive officer of Wells Fargo & Co., not pictured, in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016. Stumpf, fighting to keep his job amid a national political furor, will forgo more than $41 million of stock and salary as the banks board investigates how employees opened legions of bogus accounts for customers. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

What Democrats' House takeover means for banks

The focus since the 2016 election on easing rules, tax cuts and expanding access to credit is about to be turned on its head.

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Synchrony has a lot to lose in fight with Walmart

After the retail giant filed an $800 million lawsuit against its former credit card partner, shares in Synchrony plunged. Now analysts fear its relationship with Sam's Club may be in jeopardy.

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Representative Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California, speaks during the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., on Wednesday, July 27, 2016. With the historic nomination for the first woman to run as the presidential candidate of a major U.S. political party, Democrats gathered in Philadelphia hoped they had turned a corner on Tuesday. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

Should industry fear Waters-led banking panel?

The presumptive chair of the House Financial Services Committee will likely take the panel in a sharply new direction and have a new bully pulpit to criticize the Trump administration.

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Sizing up the real fintech threat to banks

Will it be a bigfoot from Amazon, Google and Apple, or death by a thousand bites from niche rivals? Or can banks rally and fend off the insurgents?

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Small banks join forces to address fintech challenges

The consortium is starting out with a dozen banks and could have 50 within a year.

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Attendees visit the Amazon.com Inc. Web Services (AWS) booth during the GeekWire Cloud Tech Summit in Bellevue, Washington, U.S., on Wednesday, June 27, 2018. The event is the premier independent technical conference for anyone looking to get ahead in the cloud, from developers to business decision makers. Photographer: David Ryder/Bloomberg

David Ryder/Bloomberg

Even in the cloud, banking is tied to legacy tech

Serverless computing has its proponents — Capital One and BBVA among them — but the service hasn't yet proven it can fulfill general systems needs in banking.

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Jeff Sessions, U.S. attorney general, listens during an event on actions to combat the opioid crisis in the Great Hall at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018. President Donald Trump yesterday signed the bipartisan legislation, H.R. 6, which dedicates more resources to fight the opioid crisis. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

With Jeff Sessions out, will pot payments thrive?

During his time as U.S. attorney general, Jeff Sessions was an outspoken opponent of the legalization of cannabis sales. Now that Sessions has resigned, legal marijuana is poised to become a growth industry.

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What's keeping chief risk officers up at night

Heightened competition from nonbanks, the rise of populism and the uncertainty surrounding Libor's demise are just some of the short- and long-term threats facing big banks, risk executives say.

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There's no excuse for ignoring the unbanked, big banks' own data shows

Information about new account holders pulled from Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo contradicts the notion that the previously unbanked turn into costlier customers.

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Window may be closing for small banks to compete for small business

Big banks and fintechs are aggressively adding digital capabilities to process applications quickly, creating a sense of urgency for community banks.

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