ALTERNATIVE FINANCIAL SERVICE PROVIDERS ASSOCIATION

The stock market has stopped paying attention to what Trump says

President Donald Trump's broad comments about potential policies used to work investors into a frenzy, spurring large market fluctuations that created and erased billions of dollars of value.

Now they're met with a yawn.

That dynamic was at work in US stocks on Monday as Trump's statement that he's "looking into" breaking up the big Wall Street banks barely made a dent in regular trading.

Several measures showed traders immediately reacting to the news in a moderate way, only to revert to normal within an hour.

The KBW Bank Index, which tracks all of the biggest US lenders, dropped as much as 0.8% in the minutes following Trump's comments before erasing the entire decline over the 45 minutes that followed. The gauge finished flat on the day.

The benchmark S&P 500 pared gains by 0.2% immediately after the statement, only to reverse within 30 minutes. The index wound up 0.2% higher on the day, just 3.2% from a record high.

The CBOE Volatility Index, or VIX, which serves as a barometer for investor fear, spiked right after the news. It too wiped out its move within a half hour, finishing 3% lower and never leaving negative territory. So much for nervousness. Read more at BUSINESS INSIDER

Jim Cramer: Trump's big bank breakup 'almost impossible'

President Donald Trump's comment about breaking up the nation's biggest banks makes sense, but is almost impossible, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Tuesday.

Speaking on "Squawk on the Street," Cramer said when Trump, who made his remarksthe same day he met with leaders of the Independent Community Bankers of America, is speaking in front of a particular audience, he aims to please.

"This audience does not like the big banks," Cramer said. "They feel like what happened during the Great Recession was that there was far too much concentration in the hands of Wells Fargo, in the hands of JPMorgan, in the hands of Bank of America."

Cramer added, "Those were really at the behest of the government. They were trying to make sure everybody was able to have a bank that worked and we didn't have a collapse. So, to undo it, while it certainly would make sense in terms of getting back to the percentages ... I think is almost impossible."

Major averages slipped Monday but then rebounded after Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg News he is considering "looking at" breaking up the big banks. The Dow closed down, while the S&P and Nasdaq posted gains.

Trump's comments could push efforts to revive the Depression-era Glass-Steagall law that separated commercial lending from investment banking, but would require an act of Congress.

Read more at CNBC

Alabama lawmakers have high interest in keeping payday loan interest high

It seems like Alabama would be able to figure this one out.

A good many Republicans and Democrats agree that state-sanctioned loan sharking is still loan sharking, and condoning such a thing says as much about the state as it does the sharks.

The Methodists agree with the Baptists - and they can't even agree on how much water a good baptism calls for -- that taking advantage of the poor is recommended in neither the New nor Old Testament.

The Catholics are on board. So are the Episcopalians and a host of other faith groups.

When you start charging people three-digit interest rates because they can't qualify for a fair and proper loan, you don't do it because you expect to be paid back. You do it because you see a weakness to exploit. You do it, if you are of that sort of mind, because you expect to trap somebody in debt and cash in on their weakness.

The Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama -- a non-partisan bunch of thinkers on the hallowed Baptist grounds of Samford University -- asked Alabamians in a poll if they thought payday lenders should be banned, and two thirds said they should.

Two-thirds can't even agree that sunshine is a pleasant thing. But this, this is one of the things most Alabamians seem to agree on.

You don't kick a fellow when he's down. Read more at AL.COM

Wall Street elite find it hard to bank on Trump's breakup talk. By Lawrence Delevingne, Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Olivia Oran

At an annual gathering of the world's most powerful thinkers and trendsetters in Beverly Hills this week, business leaders and major investors said they have gotten used to dismissing most things that President Donald Trump says or tweets.

On panels at the Milken Institute Global Conference, CEOs and billionaires were generally enthusiastic about Trump's mission to reform healthcare, cut taxes, reduce regulations and stimulate the economy. Panelists including JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) CEO Jamie Dimon and hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin offered positive remarks about the president and urged attendees to give him more time to accomplish such sizeable goals.

But in interviews on the sidelines, the Wall Street set was far more dubious that Trump can get anything done.

"I don't take Trump seriously," said a senior executive at one of the country's six largest banks. "I'm listening less and less."

Like most who wanted to share their more candid views privately, the executive spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering the president, his employer or business associates. But his comments were echoed by at least a dozen institutional investors and bank executives who spoke to Reuters.

While they remain hopeful Trump will be able to get reforms through Congress, the lack of progress combined with conflicting messages coming out of the administration make it hard to put faith in anything, they said. Read more at REUTERS

3 Technologies That Are Boosting Anti-Money Laundering Efforts. by Philip N Burgess Jr

PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated that money launderers process approximately $2 trillion worth of proceeds from illegal activities every year. Despite regulatory pressure from domestic and international governments, financial institutions (FIs) still struggle to institute cost-effective anti-money laundering strategies.

For example, KPMG noted user satisfaction with transaction monitoring tools has declined since 2011. In addition, the costs associated with those systems are starting to increase.

This lack of progress has motivated FIs to turn toward other technologies. Blockchain technologies, graph-based databases and biometric identification all offer promising opportunities for companies looking to enhance the effectiveness of their AML processes.

1. Blockchain

BlockGeeks described a blockchain as a duplicated database distributed across multiple machines. Suppose you create a spreadsheet that contains batting averages, slugging percentages and other statistics of players on your favorite baseball team. Instead of storing that spreadsheet on your computer, it's copied and distributed across hundreds of computers. That's a blockchain.

When you share that spreadsheet, can the owners of the other computers make changes to it? Not according to BlockGeeks. A blockchain cannot be controlled by a single person.

Read more at MICROBILT

How to Grow Prepaid through Financial Well-Being

If there is one thing that unites people around the world, it's a lack of trust in the financial services industry. And it's getting worse. In a recent survey just 8 percent of respondents reported having faith in their financial institutions, down from 13 percent in the prior year.

From Ponzi schemes to bank scandals, Americans' relative mistrust of financial institutions is understandable. In fact, it has led many consumers to exit the banking system and opt for alternative banking products such as prepaid cards. As a result, prepaid cards are a growing business. From 2012 to 2014, prepaid card usage increased by more than 50 percent and is forecast to grow to $3.1 trillion globally by 2022.

As they command a larger and larger share of the market, prepaid providers are at a crossroads. They can follow the path of some alternative financial providers that create products that end up costing low-income users between $1.8-4.5 billion each year, or they can be consumer-friendly products that change behavior for the better. Prepaid card providers have massive potential to expand financial inclusion and increase financial well-being by unlocking features typically provided by banking institutions and then executing them better. In this way, we believe they can actually increase their appeal and expand into new market territory.

Here are three features backed by social science evidence that our team at Common Cents predicts can help prepaid card providers increase the financial well-being of its fast-growing user base.

Integrating Savings

It may be counterintuitive that people with very little income want to save. However, research finds that people do choose to tuck away some of their hard-earned cash-you just have to ask them to do so. Read more at PAYBEFORE

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