The firms on our FinTech Forward Companies to Watch list are trying to help banks sign up mobile customers faster, write more loans, and ensure online users are who they say they are.

Banks are being "unbundled" by challengers in numerous business lines, but they can recapture the relationship with the help of technology and the right mindset.

Tata Consulting Services now tops our annual ranking of financial service technology providers, and nine new companies have made it on to this year's list.

To identify fintech startups deserving of special recognition this year as part of the FinTech Forward program, a team of American Banker editors, BAI staff and industry members debated the merits of self-nominees and companies we know.

Bank of America's ops and tech chief is looking to discuss the Internet of Things, innovation, diversity and recruitment at this week's global wholesale banking conference.

In a new book, PayPal founder and former exec Elon Musk argues that big thinking is missing from PayPal and payment startups. Put another way, NFC and QR codes won't repair the global economy. The problem is Musk's big-picture approach is it would challenge interoperability and ultimately stagnate the very industry he's trying to save.

Synechron, a consulting firm to the financial services industry, has acquired Crossbridge, a London-based consulting firm.

Santander Group, the Spanish banking giant, has invested several million dollars in Ripple, one of the most prominent startups in the hotly discussed field of distributed-ledger technology.

The term has gone from a common brand name to a catch-all for innovative technologies in financial services to a somewhat patronizing plural noun to describe startups and their founders.

Swift CEO Gottfried Leibbrandt talks about how the global messaging network is looking to stay relevant to its bank members; the potential and limitations of blockchain technology; and his views on the startups looking to disrupt banking.

A California company called NEFT wants to provide the online meeting place where debt-laden borrowers get together with lenders and credit bureaus to negotiate repayment plans. Backed by some prominent investors, NEFT says it offers carrots to get all the parties to participate.

Bankers, investors and analysts stop short of declaring a bubble. But the fintech startup and investor fields are getting crowded, and there's bound to be a culling of the herd.

Can true innovation happen when so much of the industry is still working on systems built in the 20th century?

A growing number of fintech startups are appealing to the sensibilities of millennials by meeting social missions and, in some cases, by tying the amount of business they generate to the amount they give back to charity or to their customers.

Tangerine Bank, the former Canadian operation of ING Direct, is creating and testing applications on IBM's Bluemix cloud software environment at a facility in Toronto.

Among big-bank accelerator programs, the British bank's effort is unique for its scope, size and depth.

Battery Ventures, a tech-focused investment firm, has agreed to acquire Physical Security Business Unit, part of the security division of Nice Systems, a vendor that focuses primarily on the financial services industry.

The nation's Federal Reserve Banks have kicked off a multi-year process aimed at speeding up our often painfully slow payment system. Earlier this month, a Fed task force on the issue elected a steering committee that will play a key role in defining a path forward. The 19 members on the steering committee represent various parts of the payments ecosystem, including banking giants, corporations like Walmart that are large users of the payment system, and payment innovators like Dwolla and Ripple Labs. Here's a look at 13 of them.

USAA's newest app, Savings Coach, analyzes financial data to recommend small amounts of money to save and invites members to take savings challenges, then moves the money upon the member's approval. The app comes at a time when millennials have a negative savings rate.

Blockchain technology can be used to help financial-services institutions accomplish their most important goal — improving customer service, Blythe Masters said Tuesday.