NEW YORK - (12/15/05) JPMorgan Chase & Co. and VISA planto roll out in January a six-month pilot test of payment-enabledcellphones, while Discover Financial Services indicated it will dothe same by mid-2006. Cingular Wireless will be involved in bothtests. The two financial services giants are not the first topursue such a strategy. MasterCard has said it will be able toprovide its issuing banks with payment-enabled phones within theyear, and Motorola is testing card-enabled phones with its ownemployees. The key issue to be addressed in the pilot: can thephones be made profitable for carriers. The phones will allowInternet access and downloading of other content, such as videoclips and games, for a fee.
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Synovus Financial demonstrated at an industry conference how it is using Microsoft's Copilot to help its staff address customers' concerns.
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The U.S. arm of Spanish banking giant Santander has hired Swati Bhatia to oversee retail banking and its digital transformation efforts. Bhatia joins at "an inflection point" for the company, which aims to be "a digital bank with branches," CEO Tim Wennes said.
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Mariya Rosberg is named Americas head of banking and financial services at Marsh McLennan's Oliver Wyman unit; startup ZayZoon raised $15 million in a new funding round; and more in the weekly banking news roundup.
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Last year, the Raleigh, N.C.-based Integrated called off a deal to sell itself to MVB Financial after bank stocks took a hit in the aftermath of the regional bank failures. Capital hopes to expand its government-guaranteed lending with the transaction.
March 28 -
Once a prominent figure spurring financial institutions to engage in cryptocurrency, Bankman-Fried's downslide began with the collapse of the digital asset exchange FTX in late 2022 and hit rock bottom with his sentencing to 25 years in prison.
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But the 30-year fixed rate mortgage is still near 7%, and that remains the overhang on the housing market, Freddie Mac said.
March 28