American Banker Podcast

For a small island, Ireland has developed a massive tech scene. The Celtic Tiger of the 90s took a serious hit with the recession, but during that time it established itself as a useful hub for many tech companies to put down deep roots. As the global economy continues to recover and grow, Ireland's small but powerful tech community is fostering fintech growth. In this episode, Peter Oakes, founder of FintechIreland; Dave Anderson, head of consulting at Ammeon; Gene Murphy, innovation community manager at Bank of Ireland; and Tony Kelly, CTO of Deposify, join Breaking Banks to discuss the growth of fintech in Ireland and the new opportunities due to Brexit.

Andreas Dombret, the head of banking supervision for the German central bank, discusses how cooperation remains vital despite retrenchment in the U.S. and Europe, how blockchain changes banking, and the difference between the German and U.S. banking systems.

Many community bankers take a wait-and-see approach to blockchains — "I'll deal with it when it's real." But the technology requires major change in people and processes and smaller banks need to prepare, according to Joe Dewey, an attorney at Holland & Knight and author of a new book about blockchain technology.

American Banker's Rob Blackwell and Marc Hochstein discuss the pushback from state regulators and consumer advocates to the OCC's proposed charter; Chris Skinner and Jim Marous hold forth on fintech.

Kosta Peric, deputy director of digital payments and financial services for the poor at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, discusses his efforts to expand access to low-cost financial services in developing countries. Peric, who joined the foundation in 2013 after more than two decades at Swift, also talks about creating interoperability between mobile money systems across borders; the foundation's answer to the challenges of AML and KYC; why bitcoin doesn't fit the bill yet; and more.

A freewheeling discussion (over beers) about the future of branches with Tom Brown of Second Curve Capital and Dave Martin of BankMechanics at the Trump National Doral hotel in Miami during American Banker's Retail Banking 2017 conference.

At last week's conference in London, host Brett King took time away from speaking and judging startup pitches to talk to some of the main presenters, including Ruth Wandhöfer, Citi's global head of regulatory and market strategy.

Researchers studied misconduct data for all 1.2 million financial advisers registered in the U.S. from 2005 to 2015 and found that, following an incidence of wrongdoing, female advisers are 20% more likely to lose their jobs and 30% less likely to land new jobs compared to male advisers. Women face harsher punishment despite engaging in less costly misconduct and despite a lower propensity towards repeat offenses. Mark Egan, assistant professor of finance at the University of Minnesota, explains the double standard to Penny Crosman, editor at large of American Banker, and Bonnie McGeer, executive editor of American Banker Magazine.

Starling Bank in the U.K. is building from scratch. Unlike other neobanks, Starling sees its future as a hub of financial products, not necessarily the generator of every product. CEO Anne Boden explains.

Mary Mack, a senior vice president at Wells Fargo, took over the retail banking business last year, shortly before the company was fined $185 million for opening 2 million unauthorized accounts for customers on her predecessor's watch. Mack's challenge is to rebuild consumer trust and transform the retail branch network's culture from a sales-oriented to a service-driven one. On March 23, she gave a progress report on her mission at American Banker's Retail Banking 2017 conference in Miami, discussing how employees reacted to its new incentive pay plan, why the bank stopped calling its branches "stores," how it now prevents salespeople from impersonating customers, and more.