Top banking news this month: April 2022

April 30, 2022 8:00 AM

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors.

In this month's roundup of American Banker's favorite stories: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is focusing on predatory payday lenders and their actions to steer consumers away from no-fee programs, Apple inked a new partnership with Visa for its virtual debit card offering, and more.

Michael Nagle/Bloomberg News

7 key big-bank executive moves in 2022

The Great Resignation continues to sweep across the country in an ongoing trend that has taken with it millions of disaffected employees.

But in the top echelons of the banking industry, the first quarter of 2022 has already seen several senior leaders advance their careers with high-level moves.

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Bank CEOs post-merger: Where are they now?

When a bank gets sold, its CEO often sits at a career crossroads.

Sometimes the chief executive is close to retirement age; indeed, the decision to sell the bank is frequently tied to the career arc of an aging CEO. But in other cases, the top executive at the acquired bank still has plenty of working years left.

The career paths of eight former CEOs, summarized below, suggest that these executives regularly find a new role in the banking industry — often as a board member or as the chief executive of another bank.

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USAA completes first overhaul of mobile app in 10 years

USAA was one of the first to offer mobile check deposit and was an early user of app-based intelligent assistants. The San Antonio bank and insurance company for military members is continuing to evolve with an overhaul of its mobile app for the first time since it released the app 10 years ago.

The $117.4 billion-asset company modernized its app using native mobile user interface languages. It significantly ramped up the number of personalized insights it generates and is more intentional about where and when they are displayed. A new search tool uses natural language processing so customers can type or speak their search terms using casual phrasing and be understood.

USAA is a rarity among financial institutions in that it serves a niche audience, the military, and rolls banking and insurance services into one app. But the upgrades it made align with what many banks have on their road maps.

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American Express seeks to win over fintechs with card perks

Fintechs in sectors like ride-sharing and food delivery increasingly offer their own credit and debit cards leveraging Visa and Mastercard’s digital rails, and now American Express wants a piece of that action.

One problem has been creating on-ramps for fintechs to easily issue Amex cards, but the card network hopes to solve that through a new partnership with i2c, Amex announced.

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Apple drops Discover, adds Visa, as virtual debit card partner

As Apple prepares to build out contactless payment acceptance via iPhones, the company has switched to Visa from Discover as the card network supporting its Apple Cash virtual debit card.

Apple placed Visa as the sole card network on its Apple Card virtual debit card, ending a five-year run with Discover Financial Services, which worked with Green Dot Bank to launch the card in 2017.

The move comes about two months after Apple announced plans to turn the iPhone into a payments-acceptance device by enabling Tap to Pay technology on Apple devices.

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Credit unions continue to buy banks despite bank lobby, regulator pushback

Regulators in a half dozen states have now thrown at least temporary roadblocks in front of credit unions’ efforts to buy community banks, but the deals continue on.

The latest: The American Bankers Association and other outlets reported April 4 that Minnesota’s Department of Commerce had blocked Royal Credit Union’s deal to buy Lake Area Bank in Lindstrom, Minnesota.

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CFPB says payday lenders steer customers from no-cost payment plans

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has set its sights on payday lenders who steer borrowers into costly rollovers rather than no-fee alternatives.

In a report, the CFPB said its research suggests that payday lenders are engaging in “deceptive" practices by driving borrowers to repeatedly roll over their loans, which comes with a cost, rather than providing a no-cost extended payment plan.

The CFPB said payday lenders profit from keeping borrowers in the dark about such plans, which 16 states either allow or require the industry to offer.

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Yellen emphasizes need for multilateralism as Russia sanctions escalate

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged Congress to cooperate with the Biden administration as it continues to develop the U.S. sanctions regime against Russia amid the war in Ukraine.

Yellen, testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, also emphasized the importance of maintaining the multilateral approach that the U.S. and its allies have taken to suffocating the Russian economy.

The Treasury secretary specifically highlighted the role of international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in strengthening the Russia sanctions regime and limiting economic fallout for the rest of the world.

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Credit union’s network upgrade boosts tech at its branches

A credit union in Alabama had ambitions to open more locations in rural areas and upgrade its branches with reliable internet so customers could use tablets to start loan applications or communicate over video with staffers in other branches.

One way that Alabama One Credit Union in Tuscaloosa made this possible was by migrating from MPLS, or Multiprotocol Label Switching, to SD-WAN, or software-defined wide-area networking. MPLS requires physical circuits at sites to transport data. SD-WAN is a virtual architecture that can use different data transport methods, including broadband internet. After more than a year in action, the credit union has experienced significant cost savings and improved speed in setting up new branches.

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Ukraine’s financial community carries on despite Russia’s invasion

Alyona Mysko has been working for several weeks in a bomb shelter in Lviv. During a Zoom call a day after images and videos of Russian army war crimes in Bucha had been published, she seemed shaken.

“It was the most difficult day,” said Mysko, who is the CEO and founder of the Ukrainian fintech Fuelfinance. “For everyone it was a very huge shock. We have learned about what is going on, but now we read stories from all these people, because they have started to talk about what was going on there. It was really very bad.”

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