Customer experience

Voice assistants impress at tech demos, but new research shows bank customers aren't ready to ask a speaker about their accounts just yet.

The skeptics keep waiting for investment in financial startups to dry up, but it doubled in the first half of 2018. KPMG's Safwan Zaheer explains why.

Payment companies have a responsibility to both merchants and consumers to emerge as brands in their own right, with values that resonate not just with the businesses they are supporting, but with the customers using their services, writes Koen Vanpraet, CEO of Intrapay.

Forrester principal analyst Alyson Clarke explains why the two nonbanks fared well in a recent survey of 110,000 Americans.

To improve videoconferencing adoption, banks are advised to focus on one particular group of clients.

The challenge in automating cross-selling to customers online is figuring out how to integrate with the core banking platform.

By intelligently applying friction, where the entry of a PIN or a swipe of the screen can be used to correlate against known data, we can better prove that the correct user made the transaction and avoid the costs and disruption associated with fraud and disputed claims, writes Zia Hayat, CEO of Callsign.

"Banks should be investing in innovation in this area or risk getting left behind," a fintech CEO warns.

The move from standard to real-time transactions adds another layer of complexity and creates further opportunities for fraudsters. Quicker transaction times increase the chances of fraudulent transactions going undetected, writes David Worthington, vice president of payments at Rambus.

Businesses are tasked with carrying too much of the burden of protecting customers' personal information, and typically turn to Social Security numbers. The advent of self-sovereign identity may give consumers a chance to reclaim control over their data and how it’s used, Finicity's Nick Thomas writes.

TIAA has recruited Lori Fouché to serve as CEO of retail and institutional financial services.

Tencent Holdings Ltd. is working with the Chinese government to create an electronic pass system that smooths travel between Hong Kong, Macau and the southern province of Guangdong.

Talking with Shari Van Cleave, head of Wells Fargo Digital Labs; Citizens Financial makes a big move in mortgages in purchasing Franklin American; a rewards blockchain could give Amex access to a wealth of customer data; and more from this week's most-read stories.

Unless near zero-friction identity security is embraced, connected devices cannot be used for payments in a substantial way, according to Xavier Larduinat, manager for innovation at Gemalto.

With the acquisition of Confyrm, the bank is among the few players that are putting themselves in position to sell ID authentication services to other businesses.

The authentication software and hardware provider is shifting its focus to identity verification and account onboarding, another sign that the newest generation of bank customers is not interested in coming into a branch to set up an account.

The recent outcry over government use of Amazon's facial recognition software will force TD Bank, USAA and others to confront flaws in the technology that make it harder for women and minorities than white men to use mobile banking.

The move is part of a larger trend to provide enterprise customers with tech capabilities available to retail customers.

Citigroup, Synchrony and other banks are using so-called "journey analytics" to spot weaknesses along the entirety of a customer's interactions with the bank.