I am writing from the floor of CES 2010. From my account, the ABA Banking Journal is the only financial industry publication represented at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas. It is interesting that the banking industry is absent from such an important, exciting and relevant conference. Moving on, why should financial institutions be interested in CES and in what is hot here?

As an industry, we are really missing a tremendous opportunity. Have you looked at banking websites lately? I am not talking about your internet banking page. I am talking about your home page. The landing page that gives the online visitor your locations, lists all of your products, has an “About Us” option and a plethora of drop-down boxes.

Gordon Lightfoot’s classic song by that title was all about romance, but what if you could walk up to a point-of-sale terminal in a grocery store, place your hand on a pad, think your PIN and you're done? No more cash, cards, or contactless key fobs with chips! Call it “Think n’ Pay”! Take this same concept and apply it to an ATM, and so on. Could we invent a device that can read our minds in such a way that all we have to do is think, and things happen?