Today’s always-on culture has created a demand for constant connectivity amongst consumers.

In this hyper-regulated and politically correct world, many banks will not admit that, at their core, they dislike banking small businesses.

Most thought leaders in banking agree that developing an integrated multichannel optimization strategy is paramount to remaining competitive in terms of cost and customer acquisition/retention.

Most institutions interested in expanding business loans to customers and prospects lament the fact that they lack the ideal complement of top tier bankers.

At the close of 2013, the Thomson Reuters/PayNet Small Business Lending Index (SBLI) reached its highest point in seven years.

Financial institutions are facing declining branch transactions and diminished branch sales.

The prognosticators in our industry have anticipated the decline of both brick-and-mortar branches and consumers’ use of cash for some time, but the reality of today’s market paints a very different picture.

The combination of increasing regulation, continuing sluggish economic conditions and rapidly changing consumer expectations is shrinking the revenue potential of the demand deposit account.

With branch transaction volumes continuing to decline, banks are exploring their options regarding their branches’ futures.

Among the wonders of recent automated teller machine (ATM) technology is the ability to recycle deposited cash.

Few topics in banking inspire as much commentary as branch-of-the-future concepts, since it’s now generally accepted in the industry that today’s branch model is fated to go the way of the typewriter after the word processor made its debut.

So, where are we with the much-ballyhooed digital wallets? If there’s an overriding theme to this technology space, it’s disagreement.

The question about rising deposit rates is not “if” but when and to what degree they will rise.

A new year is time for new resolutions.

The banking industry has sadly lost its small business banking mojo in the past five years.

With average branch monthly teller transaction volume for financial institutions (FIs) declining more than 45% in the past 20 years, according to FMSI’s annual Teller Line Study, banks are challenged more than ever to keep their branches profitable.

Robust digital channel adoption and rapidly changing consumer behavior have made the branch as we know it today irrelevant to many of us.

What do bank tellers, toll booth attendants and mail carriers have in common? Each group has provided decades of specialized manual service, yet is being overtaken by technology alternatives and changing customer behaviors.

Just as baby boomers are predicted to have a large impact on entitlement programs, so are they also poised to be a primary driver of small business formation in the next decade and beyond.

Earlier this year, Bank of America announced that it had surpassed one million small business mobile banking users, representing one-third of the institution’s three million small business banking customer base.