PRINCIPLES OF BANK LENDING

whitePaper | January 20, 2020

Over the past year we have seen a number of groundbreaking announcements from central banks around the world exploring the issuance of central bank digital currencies (CBDC). In this paper we provide an overview of the potential and risks of CBDC, as well as an example of how a CBDC could be designed and built on the Ethereum blockchain. The intention is to give the reader not just a good background to this important topic, but also – by means of a concrete proposal – a practical look at what the implementation of a CBDC might entail.

whitePaper | May 11, 2023

Financial institutions are transforming how they interact with customers and employees. They are seeing the immense value of implementing digital tools to meet today’s expectations and demands — specifically, mobile technology tools that enable banking from anywhere.

whitePaper | January 1, 2023

The workforce challenges which have persisted throughout 2022 remain a primary concern heading into 2023. Inflation, tightening budgets, a renewed focus on profitability, and a tight labor market make productivity measurement and capacity utilization paramount.

whitePaper | September 30, 2022

The pandemic caused lasting changes in consumer behavior, and the financial industry must adapt to the rapidly-evolving market. Stay-at-home orders caused many to shift to digital transactions, and these new habits have dramatically accelerated the need for payments systems modernization at financial institutions of all sizes. Legacy financial systems are ill-equipped to handle the rising volume of payments. Cyber fraud concerns have also increased as fraudsters around the globe developed sophisticated new ways to exploit financial systems, at a time when many institutions are still facing staffing shortages. Combined, these factors have made modernization of payments systems a top priority. “The dialogue in the U.S. payments ecosystem has irreversibly shifted toward offering increased speed, more choices, and simpler ways of sending and receiving payments," according to a 2022 Federal Reserve report.

whitePaper | March 14, 2022

The writing is on the wall. Disruptive technologies, evolving consumer behaviors and expectations, innovative new entrants, and a shifting regulatory landscape are all drivers behind the modernization of payments and banking. Current legacy systems are no match for these drivers of change, creating a predicament for financial institutions (FIs) who want to future-proof payments but face time and budget constraints.

whitePaper | August 25, 2022

This paper studies the economics behind the investment in information technologies (IT) by U.S. commercial banks in the past decade. By linking banks’, IT spending to their lending technologies, we analyze the distinctive natures of banks’ dealings with information across various lending activities. Investment in communication IT is shown to be associated more with improving banks’ ability of soft information production and transmission, while investment in software IT helps enhance banks’ hard information processing capacity. We exploit polices that affect geographic regions differentially to show causally that banks respond to an increased demand for small business credit (mortgage refinance) by increasing their spending on communication (software) IT spending. We also find that the entry of fintech induces commercial banks to increase their investment in IT—more so in the software IT category.