In baseball, not every swing is a home run. But standing still at the plate guarantees nothing. Today, small and mid-size banks find themselves in a similar dilemma with Artificial Intelligence (AI): should they strike early and risk missing, or wait for the perfect pitch—and potentially get benched by faster, more aggressive players?

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is reversing recent changes to its bank merger policies through an interim final rule, citing “confusion and uncertainty” caused by its 2024 final rule.

At the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy, Washington, D.C. Governor Bowman delivered a speech about taking a fresh look at supervision and regulation.

The Federal Reserve's top regulatory official said recently that an upcoming rewrite of bank leverage rules is just a "first step" in reviewing "distorted" bank capital requirements...Additional changes could include tweaks to a surcharge applied to large global banks, and what requirements should apply to larger regional banks.

The Senate is set to take an important procedural step forward on the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act – legislation to establish the first ever regulatory framework for payment stablecoins. The bill is the result of months of bipartisan negotiations and extensive consultation with industry participants, academic experts, and government stakeholders.

While industry analysts have no shortage of opinions about the bank failures of 2023, financial institutions must stay pragmatic in their evaluation of root causes. The wise learn from their mistakes; the wiser learn from the mistakes of others. Here are some of the key takeaways from the 2023 banking crisis.

The Federal Reserve plans to roll back a capital rule that big banks say have limited their ability to hold more Treasuries.

[Subscription Required]

Overview of the current outlook for the US banking sector prepared by Apollo Chief Economist.

Bob Diamond, founding partner and CEO at Atlas Merchant Capital, sees “no big warning signs” as he offers his view of the banking sector in America and says the environment for strong regional banks “could not be better.” Diamond also speaks about the market impact of tariffs and the US and China agreeing on a trade framework.

This handbook is intended to help you prepare for a crisis by spotting issues and avoiding common mistakes, including in areas such as information gathering, building the right team, managing public perception, and addressing enquiries from government and other authorities.

While regulatory pressures may be easing, banks still face market-driven risks. However, emerging technologies like GenAI and agentic AI, often viewed as risks themselves, can actually help manage those risks.

The banking industry is transitioning from monolithic to modular banking systems, leveraging cloud platforms and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) to integrate innovations as a majority of financial institutions see faster payments as a "must have".

Payments and financial services technology provider Fiserv is entering the stablecoin business. The company plans to launch a digital asset platform that includes a new stablecoin (FIUSD) that will be added to Fiserv’s banking and payments infrastructure by the year’s end, according to a Monday (June 23) press release. The platform will help the firm’s regional and community bank clients embrace stablecoins’ entry into the traditional finance space.

At an industry conference in New York last week, senior executives of Bank of America (BAC), Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB), and U.S. Bancorp (USB) stated that they are open to adopting stablecoins as they anticipate favorable regulations to develop.

Marvin Barth says pegged cryptocurrencies could effectively create “narrow banking”: a long-held dream of economists looking to separate critical financial functions.

The GENIUS Act is just the start. The U.S. still needs comprehensive rules covering how digital assets are issued, traded, and regulated, and it needs to address critical tax and regulatory issues, say Senator Cynthia Lummis and former Congressman Mike Rogers.

“What we’re witnessing now is the early formation of a new financial standard — one that’s faster, more transparent, and natively digital,” Nathan McCauley said.

Data from Alkami’s Perceptions Research show 82% of regional and community financial institutions believe AI will have had more of a positive than a negative impact on the industry overall and are experimenting with new AI technologies — including agents...Despite the excitement around AI agents and the technology’s potential to improve online banking experiences, bank marketers shouldn’t rush in blindly.

The question at hand is not about whether AI will transform banking — it already has, and it will continue to do so. Do we want to be part of the transformation shaping the future, or will we stand on the sidelines and be shaped by it? The choice is ours.

The essence of agentic banking lies in the seamless collaboration of specialised AI agents, both internal to the bank and external, leveraging third-party capabilities. The task at hand is enormous...This intelligent ecosystem demands a robust architecture.

Citi and Morgan Stanley joined forces with AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud to set open-source controls for secure AI adoption in the financial industry.

A 2024 American Bankers Association survey found 55% of U.S. consumers turn to mobile apps to carry out their banking more often than they rely on personal computers, bank branches, ATMs or phones...Learn the difference between essential and optional features in mobile banking apps.

Prelim, a Silicon Valley-based fintech known for its award-winning omnichannel onboarding solutions, is now working with Lead Bank, a Kansas City-based financial institution, to elevate its digital banking experience.

The acquisition would add 33 locations, including in Dallas and Houston, to the Montana-based lender’s footprint, as well as $3.2 billion in assets.

The agreement will see Tejas Bank merge into Maverick Bank, creating a regional community bank in West Texas with assets exceeding $650m once finalised.

Here are the latest regulatory agency transactions regarding Texas bank applications—including new charters, mergers and acquisitions, and the establishment and relocation of bank branches—as filed with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Texas Department of Banking (TDB), Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (FRBD) and the Federal Insurance Deposit Corp. (FDIC).

Each time a customer abandons onboarding, an institution loses revenue, acquisition effort and dollars, and brand reputation. Financial institutions that grow in the next decade must take steps to elevate onboarding to the same importance as customer acquisition by prioritizing 360-degree visibility of customer data and deploying real-time agile CX orchestration to act on AI insights from that data.

Digital financial services company SoFi says it has adopted its subsidiary Galileo’s cloud-based Cyberbank Core. This integration will power a variety of payment services for commercial clients, among them debit, prepaid, ACH and wire transactions, and associated banking services.