John Adams

Former Google CIO Douglas Merrill believes his firm, ZestCash, can jump-start the subprime lending market with an alternative underwriting engine that uses thousands of consumer data points and proprietary math to aid loan decisions.

As alternatives to automated clearing house payments start to mount and small business electronic payment volumes lag, NACHA has embarked on a campaign to get businesses to say "via ACH" more often.

The squeeze on fee income, lower branch volume, and big regulatory outlays has banks looking everywhere to find savings, even in teller scheduling. Automated staffing tools are moving downmarket to smaller banks such as Bangor Savings Bank and North Dakota's State Bank & Trust.

The Texan community bank is using new mobile apps to deliver consumer perks, protect payment cards and tailor content for specific customer segments.

Celent research finds that by 2013, 15 of the largest 25 banks will offer corporate mobile banking.

The volatility's immediate impact so far has been on the IT pundit class, which is busy re-crunching bank spending numbers.

As Green Dot plots to shake up the prepaid world in the wake of its Bonneville Bank acquisition, CIO and former Visa exec John MacIlwaine will develop new mobile, social networking and loyalty programs.

The research house says the European debt crisis will put a dent in IT spending and lead to a slew of bank collapses, though other analysts say the impact on U.S. bank IT will be muted, and delayed.

American Express is using scanning technology to enable merchant rewards programs to be delivered on the fly to handsets. As consumers get more familiar with scanning products while shopping, banks may be pressured to consider a barcode component to their marketing programs.

IBM's recent signing of five new banks builds on the success of its involvement with M-PESA and reveals a burgeoning market for enterprise bank technology in Africa.

The global payment organization has deployed business intelligence software that lets members analyze the data tied to messages so they can measure performance and spot opportunity.

Emerging voice recognition technology dives into databases to come up with quick fixes and tailored cross-sales messages. Financial services adoption is slow, but analysts expect a quick pick up in the year ahead to improve service and reduce call times and costs.

Long wait times at branches and slow loan approvals have become unacceptable to the credit union, which is upgrading most of its IT via a Corelation platform.

Jack Henry's ProfitStars, FIS and Clairmail are all among the firms upgrading the look and feel of their web-accessed mobile banking offerings as the use of 'non native' apps continues to be strong.

By outsourcing large parts of its core, the Washington State community bank is removing more than a dozen different vendor relationships.

The firm believes the decline of the postal service and lingering cash-flow problems for businesses equal a robust opportunity for electronic billing services.

By placing credit scores on mobile devices, the credit management site is hoping to give shoppers another tool to use to gauge whether or not they should or can make a purchase.

The Massachusetts community bank's existing customers are getting older, new lending is stagnant and regs are around the corner. An analytics-driven rewards program, it is hoped, will help cure all three.

The firm's new Financial Stability Risk Score digs deeper into risk to attract lenders skittish in the rough economy, identifying the accounts with the highest risk of failure.

Lots of banks and nonbanks are trying to bring automation to the decidedly unautomated small business sector. Western Union's the latest to try with a new online payments engine.