On Monday, Quontic Bank began offering customers an unassuming black band embedded with contactless payment technology that they can use at point-of-sale terminals. Such devices exist in other countries. Visa introduced near field communication-enabled rings for Olympic athletes in 2016; the London-based Kerv emerged in 2017 from a Kickstarter campaign; a bank in Australia rolled out the Halo ring in 2018. Some ring-makers advertise availability in the U.S. But Quontic, a $916 million-asset community development financial institution in New York City, says it is the first financial institution to offer one in this country. Will consumers take to a debit card disguised as jewelry when they can already pay by hovering their cards, smartphones, fitness trackers or smartwatches above a contactless terminal?

In celebration of National Financial Literacy Month, OneUnited Bank, the nation's largest black-owned bank, is proud to announce its 12th Annual "I Got Bank!" National Financial Literacy Contest where ten children will win a $1,000 savings account. To make financial literacy a core value of the Black community, the Bank is offering a free "I Got Bank" E-Book. Students from across the country between the ages of 8 and 12 are encouraged to read a financial literacy book of their choosing, and either write a 250-word essay or create an art project to show how they would apply what they learned from the book to their daily lives. Submissions must be emailed or postmarked by June 30, 2022. The Bank will choose ten winners and award each winner a $1,000 savings account at OneUnited Bank by August 31, 2022.

Bank regulators are sharpening their tools for identifying and curbing discriminatory practices in the home appraisal industry. The Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Credit Union Administration plan to devise new ways to monitor appraisal processes for racial, ethnic and sex-based biases, according to a report published this week by a White House task force aimed at addressing long-running prejudices in appraisals. The agencies will also scrutinize mortgage lenders to identify patterns of bias, work with other government agencies to enforce new rules and create a shared database of historical appraisals to benefit research and enforcement efforts. They will also take steps to improve the reevaluation process for buyers who feel their properties have been unfairly discounted and design guidance for computer-generated valuations.

A postal reform bill that passed Congress this week could offer another opportunity to install a postal banking system in the United States, according to a review by the Prospect. While the $107 billion in savings from ending the Postal Service's prefunding of retirement benefits and moving postal retirees onto Medicare has received most of the headlines, Section 103 of the bill, subsection 3704, restates USPS authority to partner to "provide property and nonpostal services" to federal government agencies, as long as whatever results raises revenue for the Postal Service. This would appear to supersede one aspect of a ban on non-postal products from the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, and could pave the way to providing services that mirror a bank account for any American who wants one.