Karen Epper Hoffman

Karen Epper Hoffman has been writing about banking and technology issues for nearly a quarter of a century for publications including American Banker, Bloomberg Businessweek and Financial Times’ The Banker. She has also spoken and moderated panels at industry conferences.

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Jul 29, 2021

Community banks are struggling to stay ahead of the crooks as COVID-19 scams hit both the institution and its customers.

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Jul 7, 2021

A growing focus on diversity, equity and inclusion has some banks and credit unions building more mentoring and career-pathing into the employee assessment process.
Small Business

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Apr 22, 2021

Financial services leaders recall last year's glitch-filled frenzy and the ways the process has improved the second time around.
Diversity, equity and inclusion

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Mar 28, 2021

Banks and service providers are more focused on recruiting women and people of color, but these employee groups still experience the greatest attrition.

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Mar 3, 2021

In the wake of COVID-19, banks must revisit how customers view their brand and what the organization can do to boost its reputation at this critical time.
Woman looking at her phone

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Dec 18, 2020

The pandemic, social justice movement and resulting changes to the financial industry will impact on how customers experience banking this year.
Woman working from home for her small business

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Dec 2, 2020

The legacies of long-outlawed discriminatory lending practices still affect minority borrowers today. Here's how today's diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are starting to turn the tide.
customer data digital

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Oct 14, 2020

In the wake of the pandemic, banks are retooling their loyalty programs to fit the "new normal."

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Jul 13, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how account teams acquire and engage with customers.
artificial intelligence customer service

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Jun 24, 2020

The trend toward online financial advice and planning predates COVID-19, but the pandemic has kicked up the pace of adoption.

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May 11, 2020

No financial institution is exempt from the occasional ‘malicious insider’, who, acting alone or with outside help, can do more damage than virtually any outside fraudster. In addition to knowing where a bank’s most vital and […]

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Apr 20, 2020

For banks to fully embrace their digital destiny, top executives and board members need to set the tone with a cultural transformation that underlies the increasing move to electronic channels. Traditional banks are often seen as […]
Hacker

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Mar 25, 2020

It’s no secret that fraudsters use weakness and vulnerability to their greatest advantage, and they move fast. From the earliest days of the coronavirus outbreak, scam artists have worked to leverage the societal disruption – quarantines, […]
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Jan 29, 2018

So, then: Was 2017 a triumph or a trash fire? In at least one sector, it was a literal fire sale—as the precipitous (if long-predicted) demise of the retail store made headlines, even as e-commerce titans such as Amazon...
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Nov 21, 2017

The stereotypes that surround Africa’s track record of innovations—or as some would argue, the lack of them—may well outnumber those dismissive people who still call it “the third world.” What with all the breathless foreign correspondents […]
Device Chart2

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Sep 21, 2017

The stereotype is that FinTechs play big. Really big. Only big. Big-dreamin’ entrepreneurs cruise Silicon Valley’s Sand Hill Road in big-money sports cars, looking for big-time venture capital so that they can finally, finally play ball with the big dogs...
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Sep 13, 2017

Thus far in 2017, interest rates haven’t risen as quickly or high as many industry prognosticators anticipated. And with interest rates stagnant for so long, you couldn’t blame some bankers for consulting a ouija board as opposed to fearless Fed...
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Jul 24, 2017

In 1967, Thurgood Marshall became the first black U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Middle East fighting flared with the Six Day War and The Beatles released “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” In fact, less than 30 […]
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Apr 7, 2017

Millennials have fashioned the smartphone into a ubiquitous tool to socialize via Twitter or Instagram or Snapchat; collaborate on projects with Slack; or find and review restaurants on Yelp. So it seems natural that this group […]
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Mar 14, 2017

If necessity is the mother of invention, then there’s a new child in financial services that reconciles compliance and regulation with a seeming opposite: efficiency. RegTech—or regulatory technology—arguably represents the fastest growing segment in the scorching-hot […]
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Mar 1, 2017

By now it’s a fact of financial life, or perhaps even life immortal: Like a cat with nine lives, or mythical, money-green beast, bank branches simply won’t die. In fact, the most technologically nimble retail banks […]