Penny Crosman

Execs from Bank of America, Wells Fargo, BBVA, Ally Bank and others outlined their AI strategies, progress to date and lessons learned at BankAI this week.

As many as a dozen financial institutions are deploying IBM’s Watson to search for signs of employee misconduct so they can avoid a Wells Fargo-size scandal. But the legal and technical limits of its use are major issues.

Credit Suisse, State Street and several other banks are experimenting with a blockchain technology that could allow them to make corporate deposits more affordable to hold on their books.

The bank is upgrading its ATM network to work with Apple Pay, Android Pay and Samsung Pay, allowing easier cash withdrawals and other cardless ATM transactions.

In experimenting with a chatbot on its mobile app, TD Bank will have to tackle the same issue facing several of its rivals — how to automate conversations with consumers and decide at what point it’s time to switch to a human.

It's a question many banks are already confronting head-on as they implement new technologies designed to make compliance easier.

Banks that find true innovation hard to accomplish can take heart — it’s no picnic for startups either. To hear both sides share their challenges is an argument for collaboration.

Citi’s innovation leader, Yolande Piazza, envisions reinventing the way the bank interacts with customers, so that it is part of their daily lives — always present, always intuitively easy and always helpful.

Yes, the credit bureau goofed badly on data security, and it proved to be worse at crisis management. But other companies have been just as sloppy with cyber defenses, and business and government leaders should have tackled these problems long before now.

Arthur Levitt says seemingly daily scandals highlight the lack of oversight and corporate governance shortcomings of financial technology firms, but two marketplace lending executives responded that more mature companies have just as many problems.