John Adams

CHICAGO — Bank of America Corp.'s decision to charge $5 a month to debit-card users has sparked conversations across the industry around the best way to respond to the banking giant's PR nightmare, and the issue is not just hypothetical — at least one institution is already seeing the effect of B of A's fee in its recruitment efforts.

The "Occupy Wall Street" protests may be transpiring far outside the panel discussion rooms at the BAI conference in Chicago's South Loop, but for bankers, the public dissatisfaction evident in those protests was front of mind.

Technology companies are chasing new business from banks that face reliability, compliance and risk issues, along with shrinking fee sources.

Nomura Research Institute's cloud-based Internet banking service has drawn only a handful of tire-kickers in its first few weeks, but executives of the outsourcer and consultant say they're confident the service will have plenty of takers.

Wema Bank is not high on the international banking radar. But the Nigerian bank's hiring of Infosys this summer to develop a brand new multichannel information technology infrastructure to enable faster product delivery, digital banking and transaction consistency is the perfect example of how the tech company is digging deep into its entire tech bench to weather a tough market.

Banks that can't offer enticing interest rates may want to take a gamble on a startup's system for pooling interest payments in a giveaway model that, to some, looks too much like a game of chance.

The new iPhone app combines some introductory personal finance elements with an aggregation service that borrowers can access remotely.

Puon Penn leads a Wells Fargo group that targets opportunities in green technology. Part of the job is bringing the bank's own lessons learned in the institution's green IT efforts to its prospective clients.

The bank is offering PCI compliance technology to ease the auditing burden for retailers and strengthen its merchant relationships.

New delivery channels can allow quick product deployment to help customers under unexpected duress. But mobile and web can also be hostage to the same adverse elements, so it helps to have extra contingencies.

Integration tools that link online banking authentication to sign-on for other channels are finally starting to emerge as institutions risk losing competitive position in online banking.

Fieldpoint Private Bank & Trust makes no bones about its enthusiasm for finding reliable ways to job out IT.

Popular new revenue strategies that tie mobile banking, online banking and card programs to special online or mobile offers present a cross-channel integration and data management challenge. That requires lots of investments in middleware that ties payments to CRM systems to ensure the programs remain accessible, accurate, fast and functional.

An open standards-driven collaboration with SWIFT and SAP is helping the bank increase automation in corporate payments processing. Other elements of treasury management will follow.

Paul Smocer is spearheading a new project intended to help banks monitor their internet service providers' authentication methods.

The financial management startup is leaning on the expertise of its tech-savvy team of founders to build advanced aggregation, coupled with personalized service in automated channels.

About 78% of consumers surveyed are comfortable with their banks using security cameras to improve customer service. Union Savings Bank in Danbury, Conn. is testing this concept.

Kenya is proving to be a hub of mobile finance innovation in the developing world, even as mobile-payment systems in the U.S. struggle to build an audience.

Diebold claims its rival's single-slot ATMS, which mix cash and checks in a single deposit, are more prone to malfunction than Diebold's dual slot model. But the new NCR machines have won big deployment deals with Wells Fargo and BMO, and Wells has reported no problems.

New malicious software comes out on an almost daily basis. Sun National's tech leaders discuss the software they use to tackle the problem.