The 10 Keys to Successful Trading

whitePaper | August 1, 2022

The Office of the Chief Accountant (OCA) is pleased to present the August 2022 edition of the Bank Accounting Advisory Series (BAAS). The BAAS expresses the OCA’s interpretations of accounting topics relevant to national banks and federal savings associations (collectively, banks or institutions, unless otherwise specified). We hope that you find this publication useful and that it continues to be a practical resource for bankers and examiners. The BAAS is updated annually to address ongoing accounting questions, newly issued and updated accounting standards, and emerging issues observed through March 31. Consistent with prior editions of the BAAS, the 2022 update does not focus on questions related to the impact of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and does not reflect policy statements and rules issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 policy statements and rules address specific challenges and are not intended to be used by analogy in non-COVID-19 situations.

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 | 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.

whitePaper | February 15, 2022

For years, shoppers in Europe and Asia have been paying with contactless methods such as mobile wallets and contactless cards. While U.S. consumers have traditionally been slow to adopt this payment method, they’ve recently begun making up for that delay.

whitePaper | July 26, 2022

For a very long time, incumbent banks/financial institutions have remained the pillars or stalwarts of the banking industry. Be it a retail consumer or a business, banks have remained a one-stop solution for all their financial needs. However, financial institutions have had their fair share of challenges in the past decade, which have ultimately trickled down towards the end consumer and revolutionized banking as we know it.

whitePaper | September 13, 2022

Over the past decade, a number of major innovations have been introduced that are transforming transport ticketing ecosystems. In particular, Account Based Ticketing (ABT) and the acceptance of bank cards at passenger gates are now pre-eminent in the strategies of major transit agencies. This document explores the opportunities that these trends are creating in terms of the use of closed loop cards.