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.

Banks and others have been rolling out new technologies and updated features in recent weeks that are designed to improve customer satisfaction. Following are five ways banks are aiming to use software upgrades to delight customers in major and minor ways.

NCR has been working to become a "hardware-enabled, software-driven business" for eight years. With its purchase of online and mobile banking vendor Digital Insight and transaction switching and fraud detection software company Alaric Systems, it's taken a big step forward.

Vendors need to make their products easy to modernize and integrate, says Inder Koul, who runs IT at First Niagara.

Dollars in millions

Dollars in millions

Companies that made large jumps up or down in our rankings in 2012

As banks invest in newer digital channels, they need to focus on customer profitability.

New mobile apps let consumers handle personal financial management, pay bills, send money to friends and relatives, watch over their credit, and even fund a small business.

Doing payments well is really hard, as payments "disruptors" are finding out.

Some of the best uses for analytics in banking today include rewards programs, customer intelligence and risk management.

The challenges banks face remain largely the same, but the solutions with which they take them on have evolved.

How this year's FinTech 100 and Enterprise 25 rankings were calculated.

Common wisdom suggests small, nimble startups have an advantage over larger, clumsier organizations. But in financial technology, this tends to not be the case.

New approaches to security and customer interaction technology dominate BTN editors' picks for this year's Top 10 FinTech Companies to Watch.

In an earnings call, FIS CEO Gary Norcross articulated a trend we’ve been following for several months: banks are charging for certain mobile banking services and getting away with it.

As Fexco and First Data demonstrated an ATM this week that lets consumers use a mobile phone instead of a card for access, they emphasized that the bank is at the heart of the offering — everything about the technology could be changed to the bank's whim.

Four vendors own the U.S. core banking market. But others, mostly international vendors, are starting to creep in.

The credit bureau Equifax has joined with a mobile security firm to improve the two companies' fraud protection systems.

As banks reimagine their branches, BTN's Mary Wisniewski spends the day with American Heritage Federal Credit Union's video tellers. The Philadelphia credit union offers an example of what the future teller looks like: offsite and visible to members through a Skype-like experience on personal teller machines.