Citigroup’s latest results took note of continued spending on credit cards but there were some notes of caution in the mix.The earnings materials detailed that branded card-related volumes were 4% higher year on year in the March period, to just under $121 billion. End of period loans were 11% higher on those branded cards.The company’s organization revamp is largely complete, CEO Jane Fraser said, who added that “we are intensifying our efforts such as automating certain regulatory processes and the data r ...

The opening week of first-quarter earnings season was billed as a referendum on the state of the U.S. economy, specifically consumer spending.While Wells Fargo didn’t post stellar earnings Friday (April 12) it did vote “yes” on the economic prospects for the balance of 2024.“We continue to see strength in the U.S. economy,” CEO Charlie Scharf said during the company’s earnings call. “Spending patterns and consumers using our debit and credit cards remain generally consistent and continue to grow year over y ...

Consumers are still spending, but JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, in remarks accompanying the banking giant’s latest earnings Friday (April 12), detailed concerns over inflation’s impact.And “persistent inflation pressures,” as he termed them, among other factors, will be unpredictable.As Dimon stated in the earnings release, “we have never truly experienced the full effect of quantitative tightening on this scale. We do not know how these factors will play out, but we must prepare the firm for a wide range of po ...

Apple lost its bid to have part of a lawsuit in the United Kingdom dismissed.The lawsuit was filed on behalf of 1,500 U.K.-based app developers and alleged that Apple charged them unfair commissions on apps and other content purchased from the company’s App Store, Reuters reported Friday (April 12).The lawyers for Sean Ennis, a competition law professor and economist who brought the case, told the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) that Apple abused its dominant position in distributing apps on its devices.A ...

Morgan Stanley is reportedly facing investigations by several agencies into how its wealth management division vets and monitors clients who may pose money-laundering risks.The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Federal Reserve are probing the bank, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Thursday (April 11), citing unnamed sources.The activity of ...

Anti-money laundering (AML) defenses might begin at the point of onboarding.The needs are for all manner of firms — and especially banks and investment management companies — to embrace technology in the service of beefing up their onboarding processes and automating them too.    Media sites including The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Thursday that U.S. regulators are examining Morgan Stanley’s anti-money laundering efforts.The scrutiny comes from a broad range of regulators, ranging from the Securitie ...

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy published his 2023 Letter to Shareholders Thursday (April 11), outlining how the company is changing and its goals for the future.It’s a 28-minute read by Amazon’s own count. If you don’t have the half hour to spare, here are some key highlights (a three- to four-minute read by our count).Back to Tech BasicsPerhaps most notably, Jassy focused more on the ways the company is transforming the experience for developers than for consumers.Jassy emphasized Amazon’s commitment to improving t ...

Goldman Sachs has promoted its chief strategy officer and global head of investor relations, Carey Halio, to global treasurer.Halio will also become a member of the bank’s management committee, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said in an internal memo dated Thursday (April 11) seen by PYMNTS. Goldman Sachs’ previous global treasurer, CEO of Goldman Sachs Bank USA and interim head of platform solutions, Philip Berlinski, has decided to retire from the bank at the beginning of June, Solomon said in another Thu ...

To further increase its already substantial share of the retail market, last month Amazon announced its first Big Spring Sale.The sale ran from March 20 to March 25, and although the eCommerce giant likely anticipated it would move a lot of merchandise and boost first-quarter earnings, PYMNTS Intelligence data showed the event was a bit underwhelming.This is not to suggest the sale was a flop. As PYMNTS Intelligence’s “Amazon Spring Sale Turns Deal Seekers Into Prime Members” showed, 28% of U.S. consumers p ...

Adobe is reportedly paying artists and photographers to supply videos and images that will be used to train the company’s artificial intelligence models.The company is using images from its own library of stock media but is paying contributors to fill in any gaps in the materials it has available, Bloomberg reported Thursday (April 11).Adobe is paying between 6 cents and 16 cents for each photo and an average of $2.62 per minute for videos, according to the report.The videos will be used to help develop an ...