Banking as a service is expensive, it takes time and onboarding has to be done carefully, says the founder of Bancorp Bank, who now runs a venture capital firm that invests in fintechs. 

Cloud-based tech giants like Amazon, Google and Uber are changing the economy, and not for the better, asserts Yanis Varoufakis, a former finance minister of Greece and a professor at the University of Athens, who has written a book about the dangers of what he calls the "cloudalists."

Financial technology startups have developed some useful technology for consumers, such as automated savings, says Tescher, who founded the Financial Health Network 20 years ago. But some fintech innovations are more questionable. 

Geraldine Fleming, financial task force manager at United for Wildlife and Jonny Bell, director, EMEA, LexisNexis Risk Solutions explain how banks around the world are helping to catch criminals who illegally mutilate, kill and sell rhinoceroses, elephants, donkeys and other animals.

Eric Siegel, author of the book The AI Playbook, explains what it takes to take traditional and advanced artificial intelligence projects from idea to execution.  

The neobank doubled its membership to five million consumers and hired 200 people last year. Founder and CEO Renaud Laplanche explains how it fared during a time when many fintechs struggled.

Mike Abbott, global banking lead at Accenture, shared some of his predictions and opinions for the year ahead.

The fintech revolution has been more successful at working with banks than at trying to replace them, points out Gene Ludwig, former Comptroller of the Currency, chair of the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, and co-founder of Canapi Ventures. Those with “must have” products will fare far better in 2024 than those with “nice to have” tools, he says.

It's been a rough year for fintechs and for the venture capital firms that fund them. Venture capital flows into financial technology companies dropped by 36% year over year to $6 billion in the third quarter of 2023. But Amy Nauiokas, founder and CEO of Anthemis Group, is optimistic about 2024.

Over the past year, the national bank regulators’ oversight of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, Silvergate Capital and other banks that failed has been criticized. Reports of a toxic workplace at the FDIC have come to light. And the OCC hired a Deputy Comptroller and overseer of fintech who had easily discoverable falsehoods on his resume. Michele Alt, cofounder and managing director at Klaros Group, explains what this might mean for banks in the coming year.

Penny Lee, president and CEO of the Financial Technology Association and Steve Boms, executive director of FDATA NA, explain what their members like about the proposed regulation and what they would change.

Community banks sometimes feel that they lack the budget and staff to compete with larger banks and fintechs on things like mobile and online banking, virtual assistants and most recently generative AI. Jim Perry, senior strategist at Market Insights, suggests steps they can and should take to stay relevant technology wise.

The case is not really about cryptocurrency but about fraud, points out Seoyoung Kim, department chair and associate professor of finance and business analytics at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. But regulators and lawmakers are watching and the outcome of the trial will have repercussions throughout finance.

Johnson, chief experience officer at Citizens Financial Group, shares some of her concerns about advanced AI and plans to use it for purposes including contact center support and coding.

Bell, an attorney, founded Ready Life to help reduce the racial wealth and homeownership gaps by showing lenders that credit-score-less consumers have been responsible with their money, based on their daily transactions. Now he and Bernice King, Martin Luther King Jr.'s daughter, are buying a community bank just outside of Salt Lake City.

What are the best options out there for people living on the edge financially who have an emergency expense? The Global Black Economic Forum and the Center for Business and Economic Research recently completed a study called the 2023 Cash Poor Report that dives into this question.

Financial institutions can trade billions of dollars per day and handle sensitive data for millions of customers across the globe, which make them enormously attractive targets for cybercriminals. Their defenses must be top notch and ever evolving to keep up with this threat, but FIs' infrastructures are usually vast and complex, straddling old, legacy mainframes and cutting-edge, cloud-based applications that can create security gaps. Moreover, regulations mandate that some divisions within...

Though generative AI has limitations and risks, there is a cost to ignoring it, according to Ryan Favro, a managing principal at Capco.

Immersive technologies and automation are also on the list of technologies that are here, employees want them and companies like banks need to deal with them, says Phil Simon, author of a new book called The Nine: The Tectonic Forces Reshaping the Workplace.

Marisa Calderon, executive director of a nonprofit community development financial institution, explains why the wealth gap persists, for instance systemic bias in the appraisal process, and what lenders could do to reduce it.

Leaders of many of the biggest tech companies recently signed an open letter calling on all AI labs to immediately pause the training of advanced artificial intelligence systems. Seth Dobrin, advisor to the Responsible AI Institute and former chief AI officer at IBM, shares his thoughts on where banks should be careful about using AI.

Dr. Aniket Bera, associate professor at the department of computer science at Purdue University, explains how AI can be used in the financial services industry to detect when a customer is angry or depressed or even when an employee is upset or about to commit fraud.

Sumeet Chabria, founder and CEO of advisory firm Thoughtlinks and a former tech executive at Bank of America, explains some of the technology changes every bank should be making to ensure it’s not the next victim of a bank run.

Brian Graham, partner and co-founder of advisory and investment firm Klaros Group, breaks down what went wrong with Silvergate Capital, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and what banks can do to avoid the problems that brought these banks down.