Biometrics

The San Francisco bank isn't interested in making splashy investments in technology. At an investor day event Tuesday, Wells executives said they would focus on taking incremental steps to reduce costs and improve customer experiences.

Wells Fargo will soon roll out eyeprint verification for its commercial customers using its mobile banking platform.

BMO Financial Group is looking to bring a recent consumer-facing innovation to its corporate customers.

Biometrics are seen as the future of authentication, but some customers hesitate to ditch old ways. Picking the most practical pain points — like authenticating over the phone — is banks' best bet to win converts, observers say.

Authentication methods meant to keep cybercriminals from taking over accounts can also lock out legitimate users. This old dilemma is growing more vexing as cybercriminals get better at impersonating customers and as regulators increasingly push multifactor authentication.

Banks have a lot of work to do to modernize branches and keep their technology on par with other businesses' digital tools. Here are some ideas worth borrowing from retailers, restaurants and consumer electronics makers if banks haven't adopted them already, says appointment-software firm Financial Management Solutions.

Customer expectations for digital are a moving target, and banks and their vendors are quickly trying to figure out which products and services to add next.