Financial institutions have spent decades learning how to identify customers. Hong Kong is starting to test how they might identify the artificial intelligence (AI) agents acting for them. Hong Kong’s four principal financial regulators on Thursday (Aug. 27) announced the first group of projects admitted...
Wells Fargo has spent the last few years overhauling its wealth management business. Now, the banking giant is trying to convince hundreds of financial advisors to join that division, Bloomberg News reported Thursday (Aug. 27). According to the report, this new push focuses on wooing...
Thirty-nine state banker associations this week announced plans to create an industry-owned, industry-designed and industry-governed blockchain network capable of supporting smart payments, tokenized deposits, stablecoins and automated settlement. But the most important verbiage in the BankChain Alliance’s Tuesday (Aug. 25) release wasn’t “blockchain.” It was...
England wants its central bank to support innovation in stablecoins and other digital money. The U.K. Treasury announced Thursday (Aug. 27) that it had set a new objective for the Bank of England to make sure its regulatory framework fosters the appropriate conditions for things like tokenization and distributed...
A primary financial relationship loses some of its value when the provider can see only a fraction of the customer’s money. Consumers now routinely distribute checking, savings, credit and investments among several institutions and apps. For banks and FinTechs, that creates two gaps. Money held...
Canadian banks are not being harmed by the effects of new U.S. tariffs that impact some of their customers, and the banks may even find new opportunities, Reuters reported Tuesday (Aug. 25). Bank of Montreal (BMO) and Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank) reported earnings Tuesday...
FDIC-insured commercial banks and savings institutions reported a return on assets ratio of 1.37% in the second quarter, marking one of the best results since 1984, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chairman Travis Hill said Tuesday (Aug. 25). Speaking during a press briefing about the FDIC’s latest Quarterly Banking Profile, Hill...
Brazil-based bank Itaú Unibanco Holdings S.A. has secured preliminary approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a new national bank in the United States called Itaú Bank, National Association, the OCC said in an Aug. 14 corporate decision. If...
For the first time in years, the U.S. bank branch count is moving up meaningfully, and some of the biggest banks are putting billions of dollars behind the physical network. FDIC data shows 69,167 branches at the end of 2025, an increase of 535 from...