Opinions

Security breaches at trusted global corporations, such as Target and eBay are becoming a regular occurrence. Valuable customer data serves as a new currency of sorts for fraudsters, prompting the digital underground to stage well thought out attacks on a scale previously unheard of.

There have literally been dozens of tablet-based point of sale solutions introduced to the retail market and with reason. The demand for a better point of sale software solution has been increasing rapidly.

Startups that focus on person-to-person payments or peer-to-peer lending may well be the future heavyweights of the financial services industry. Banks must either band together to create viable alternatives or risk losing relevance.

Banks that want to stay ahead of the digital curve should consider hub-and-spoke branch models, products that blend digital and physical services and innovation labs that allow creative thinkers to experiment — and even to fail.

Push notifications offer banks and credit card issuers a unique way to communicate with a generation that's skeptical of the financial industry but fond of technology and hungry for deals.

For the financial and retail industries, mobile is becoming a significant part of the strategy for delivering valuable content and services to customers. Two technologies in particular are available on many of today’s smartphones and are being looked at to enhance consumer experience: Near Field Communications (NFC) and Bluetooth low energy (BLE).

Many small banks lack the resources to make necessary investments in cybersecurity. One solution could be to institute regional centers that would allow banks to pool resources, train staff and investigate potential breaches.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week.

Disney has found success with wearable technology thanks in no small part to its efforts to educate and motivate customers about its MagicBand wristbands.

A payment and currency exchange system called the Ripple protocol makes dollars, yen, euros, Bitcoins, gold and even frequent flyer miles virtually interchangeable.