Fringe financial services is the label sometimes applied to payday lending and its close cousins, like installment lending and auto-title lending—services that provide quick cash to credit-strapped borrowers. It’s a euphemism, but one that seems to aptly convey the dubiousness of the activity and the location of the customer outside the mainstream of American life. And yet the fringe has gotten awfully large. (The Atlantic)

One year ago, the .bank domain was launched by fTLD Registry Services and since then, more than 2,550 domestic banks and 250 international banks have together registered nearly 6,000 domain names for their institutions. The .bank domain provides banks not only with a higher level of customer security, but with greater brand power that can enhance the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. (ABA Banking Journal)

The share of Americans who say they prefer saving to spending rose to an all-time high of 65 percent, according to a recent Gallup poll. The rise continued a marked post-recession trend, versus steady figures in the early 2000s showing that the share of spenders and savers was equally matched. (ABA Banking Journal)

Already there has been a huge amount invested in fintech in 2016, with investors funding close to $9 billion in January and February alone. It is a sector of innovation that shows no signs of slowing down, with companies tackling every part of the financial infrastructure. If 2015 was the year of the great "Bank Unbundling," with new companies dissecting the consumer banking experience to offer specialized services, it was also a year that saw the emergence of a new landscape of financial influencers taking a seat at the table. (Tech Crunch)

(audio) Back in February, hackers stole $81 million from the Bangladeshi central bank’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The fraudulent transfer request likely came through the SWIFT system, a messaging network used by more than 11,000 financial institutions to communicate and issue transfer instructions. (NPR Marketplace)

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is expected to propose a rule allowing it to supervise online marketplace lenders, according to a Wall Street Journal article this week. "The agency aims to unveil a proposal this fall to supervise the largest so-called installment lenders that essentially offer small-dollar loans with set payment periods as well as lenders who tie such loans to car titles," the Journal reported. (ABA Banking Journal)

The Financial Accounting Standards Board voted this week to move forward with its Current Expected Credit Loss standard, but agreed to push the implementation timeline back by one year after a request by ABA. Banks that file with the Securities and Exchange Commission will now have until 2020 to implement CECL, while non-SEC filers will have until 2021. Early adoption will be permitted starting in 2019. (ABA Banking Journal)

ABA voiced strong opposition this week to December 2015 legislation that substantially cut the dividends paid on the Federal Reserve Bank stock that national banks and other Fed member banks are required to hold. In a letter commenting on the Fed’s regulation implementing the legislation, ABA stated that Congress’ decision to slash the dividend for banks over $10 billion in assets in order to fund national highway projects violates federal law and sets a dangerous precedent for unfair treatment of specific segments of the business community to meet broad public obligations. (ABA Banking Journal)

The Federal Reserve, determined to move cautiously, said on Wednesday that the American economy still was not ready for higher interest rates. The Fed said that the labor market continued to get stronger, yet it made the widely expected decision not to raise its benchmark interest rate, which remains close to zero, and it offered no suggestion that a rate increase was imminent. (New York Times)

A new working paper from the Mercatus Center attempts to document the cumulative cost of all the government regulations implemented over the last 40 years. It finds that the growth of regulation between 1977 and 2012 has shaved about 0.8 percent off the rate of growth, costing the nation a total of $4 trillion worth of GDP. (Bloomberg View)