The pandemic has created many new, unforeseen challenges for people around the world. Most of the issues dominating headlines and our collective headspace existed well before the pandemic. But now, in a world that feels like it’s been turned upside down, they have been exacerbated. The debate around payments innovation and cashless societies is a prime example.

Many governments and companies have pushed to outlaw cash to help flatten the curve and drive innovation in payments. But this initiative, while seemingly progressive and the obviously safer thing to do, has many unintended and dangerous consequences for unbanked or underbanked consumers. Fintech, as an industry, has a responsibility to examine the way forward. Truly innovative solutions will include all shoppers, not divide them.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Will loan losses from the coronavirus recession get worse, much worse or extremely worse over the next six-to-12 months? All of the above, bank executives said this week.

In reporting third-quarter results, CEOs and finance chiefs at the five biggest U.S. lenders gave a muddled picture of what to expect. Economic conditions improved in recent months thanks to pandemic lockdowns lifting, as well as government assistance and loan forbearance. But it is not clear that stimulus programs will continue or whether the world is headed for a new wave of infections.

"The economy and the markets this year have been defined more than anything else by the impact of the global health-care crisis," Bank of America Corp BAC.N Chief Executive Brian Moynihan said on Wednesday. "This has created a sinuous path for the recovery."

JPMorgan's larger borrowers waited an average of 3.7 days from application to funding, while others waited 14. But U.S. Bank applicants, regardless of size, saw little difference, a report found.

A scathing report published Friday by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis illustrated the gulf in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan application processing times at several large banks.

JPMorgan Chase processed PPP loans of more than $5 million in an average of 3.7 days, compared with more than 14 days for loans of less than $1 million, according to data the bank provided the panel. The bank processed applications from companies with more than 100 employees in 8.7 days on average, but took more than 14 days to process applicants with between five and 100 employees, the report showed.

The nation's largest bank is not alone.

Name: Heather DeLucia

Years in RTO: I have been in RTO for four years. They have been the best years of my life.

What’s your current role/title?

Administrative Support Manager at Jaguar Holdings LLC, dba Eagle Rental-Purchase

What did you do before RTO?

I worked as an Administrative Assistant at Phantom Fireworks and a National Roofing Coordinator at Sodexo.

What do you do in a typical day or week?

In the last 10 years, the global retail industry has been hit by a debilitating concoction of technological disruptions and competitive challenges. From issue-based brand boycotts to rapidly changing customer expectations, many of these challenges have disproportionately affected the brick-and-mortar retail market.

Even before the current global pandemic, it was becoming increasingly clear that traditional brick-and-mortar retailing was entering a period of protracted decline. Now, faced with volatile trading conditions and intensifying competition from e-commerce platforms, brick-and-mortar vendors have found it increasingly difficult to keep up with online retail giants like Amazon AMZN -0.3% and Alibaba BABA +0.8%.

A new survey by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation titled How America Banks: Household Use of Banking and Financial Services found a record 124 million U.S. households, or 95% of Americans, had a bank or credit union account in 2019.

Meanwhile, about 7.1 million American households, or 5.4%, were unbanked last year, the lowest rate on record since the agency's biennial report began in 2009.

The survey, which collected responses from nearly 33,000 households in June 2019, found that between 2017 and 2019, more than 1.5 million new households opened bank accounts, and the use of mobile banking as the primary means of accessing accounts more than doubled since 2017, leading all other methods including tellers, ATMs, and online banking.