American Banker Podcast

Banks are just as vulnerable to the kind of nation-state cyberattack Yahoo suffered, and can avoid some of the mistakes it made, says Samuel Visner of the consulting firm ICF and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

David Weiss, senior analyst at Aite Group, weighs in on the IBM/Promontory deal and how humans and artificial intelligence programs will interact in the field of bank regulatory compliance.

Julio Alejandro, CEO of Humanitarian Blockchain in London, thinks so. Some of his projects, such as providing bitcoin Visa debit cards to refugees and digital identities for ex-cons, are ideas financial services firms could implement here.

It's long been assumed that technology will help the financially underserved access the banking services they need. Christine Duhaime, an attorney and founder of the Digital Financial Institute, a financial technology think-tank, says this assumption is wrong, and that some tech advances are already starting to have unanticipated adverse effects on the financially disadvantaged. Banks will have to think creatively — by teaching people to code and maybe even making house calls — to ensure they provide fair access to services.

Bill Barhydt, founder of startup Abra, explains how his company's mobile app uses bitcoin as a payment rail for cross-border remittances while solving the foreign exchange risk and last-mile problem that have hampered adoption of the cryptocurrency.

Executives from Deutsche Bank and Royal Bank of Canada share their early learnings about distributed ledger technology at American Banker's Blockchains + Digital Currencies conference in July.

Zooko Wilcox, founder of Zcash, discusses how advanced cryptography can bring confidentiality to transactions on distributed ledgers; the relative merits and drawbacks of the Bitcoin and Ethereum models; and more.

David Pollino, deputy chief security officer at Bank of the West, shares insights into the email-based cybertheft attacks he's been tracking and what the bank is doing to shield itself and its customers from email scams.

Regulatory burdens (particularly the Durbin interchange cap), stubbornly low interest rates and a slow, expensive transition from branch to digital banking mean only the wealthy and the desperate are attractive customers, says Todd Baker of Broadmoor Consulting.

Christopher Whalen, senior managing director and head of research at Kroll Bond Rating Agency, discusses the sorry state of European banks, the missteps by European Union regulators and the potential ramifications for financial institutions in the U.S.