American Banker Podcast

Two realistic utopians -- David Orban, founder of the London think tank Network Society Research, and Himi Khan, executive V.P. at the virtual assistant tech startup Clinc – join the show to share how AI is letting people bank with their voice and may eventually give each person a virtual assistant with which they can communicate on any device.

ICOs are relatively new and raise a host of regulatory questions, but fintech and other startups find them so appealing because they draw funding from beyond the venture capital world, explain blockchain providers George Burke and Chandra Duggirala and investors Kenzi Wang and David del Ser.

Yolande Piazza, CEO of Citi Fintech, describes the bank's unique method of gathering feedback and ideas about its apps from customers who are at home, often in their pajamas.

How Ellen Alemany, CIT's CEO, is enforcing a set of core behaviors at the company. One is straight talk.

Dek: Brett King is back on the show, talking about diversity in fintech with Anouska Streets, head of engineering at Finkit, a unit of digital banking software company Monitise, which was recently bought by Fiserv; and Colleen Wilson, founder and CEO of consulting firm Collaborate Chicago.

Forget millennials (for a minute). Theodora Lau, director of market innovation at AARP, shares why financial companies and fintechs should pay more attention to the over-50 crowd in their app designs and how a few fintech startups address this market.

Beneficial Bank in Philadelphia intends to be an early adopter of Apple's Face ID. "We try to stay at the front of the pack," CEO Gerry Cuddy says.

Newly appointed Editor in Chief of American Banker, who was formerly Washington Bureau chief of the publication, shares his take on current events in the capitol and the prospects for financial regulation reform this fall.

It's only a matter of time before U.S. banks are forced to cede control over payments the way banks in China already have, says Brett King in this week's episode, which was recorded live at the Mobile Payments Conference in Chicago.

Karen Mills, former head of the Small Business Administration, says the glut of online lenders can be a boon for entrepreneurs by helping them obtain funds quickly. But the lenders still need to be more transparent about their rates and fees, and regulations would help.