Mobile banking

Orrstown Bank in Pennsylvania has introduced two-way text messaging between customers and its service agents. It's the latest effort in the banking industry to make communication easier for mobile-first customers.

Banks nationwide are finding ways to make mobile deposit capture available to more people and faster without taking on more fraud risk.

Digital Insight, a company owned by NCR Corporation, has secured an agreement with EyeVerify Inc. to integrate the biometrics company's eye vein recognition technology, called Eyeprint ID, into its mobile banking platforms.

Websites are the old dog compared with mobile, but www.yourbank.com still has some life left in it in some eyes. Here is a sampling of Web features lauded in a recent survey of 16 banks' sites.

Corporate Insight's yearly awards for banks' online services show that financial institutions may have decided to throw all their eggs into the mobile basket to the detriment of their websites -something the firm warns is a mistake.

Apple's mobile wallet has been out for just four months, and already it has shaken up the way mobile payments operate at the point of sale. It has faced pushback from some merchants and banks, but it has also popularized new forms of security and other payment technology.

The bank's most recent ATM update offers something novel: customers can redeem their credit card rewards for cash or deposit them in other accounts at its 12,500 ATMs.

Google Glass, the search giant's eyewear that doubles as a computer, has been discontinued with consumers — for now. Even so, bankers who have experimented with the device say it was time well spent.

The San Antonio financial services provider says 101,000 members have already logged into mobile banking with a spoken phrase or a selfie. It may be a sign that after 50 years, biometric authentication is finally hitting the mainstream.

More than a decade after spearheading the direct banking model of offering high-yield savings accounts exclusively online at ING Direct, Arkadi Kuhlmann is trying to reboot international banking for the smartphone.

By linking mobile payments with money transfers, Western Union created a new use for Apple's mobile wallet. But it must still rigidly conform to the basic requirements of an Apple Pay transaction — without a bank account, there is no payment.

Fifth Third Bancorp and U.S. Bancorp say they will delicately approach expenses in 2015 — or at least until rates rise. They are investing where they must, but pinching where they can, and trying to manage expectations on loan growth.

The digital-only offshoot of Customers Bank combines edgier technology — like letting consumers snap photos of their driver's license to open accounts — with a new business model that counts on interchange revenue rather than fees.

In a newly created role, 14-year company veteran Andres Wolberg-Stok is helping Citigroup take its consumer technologies in new directions with APIs, wearables, the Internet of things and biometric authentication.

Regions Financial is testing gamification as a way to teach financial literacy to young people with a mobile app that simulates a sport more commonly associated with older generations.

In an era where businesses are increasingly focused on cloud computing, Citigroup is turning instead to souped-up hardware in the form of IBM's newest z13 mainframe, which it says can help it better deal with the explosive growth in mobile and online transactions.

The mobile platform most bankers had all but given up on is showing signs of life. But the changes seem unlikely to persuade financial institutions, many of which have quietly discontinued or abandoned their native BlackBerry apps.

Even is building a mobile money-management service for baristas, Lyft drivers, freelancers and others with unpredictable incomes. For $5 a week, users can draw advances on paychecks during rough patches.

With the availability of artificial intelligence and sophisticated risk algorithms that can run on mobile devices, some say there’s no longer a need for even stripped-down versions of the branch.

Moven has modified its personal financial management app to work on a smartwatch. Will millennials be more likely to heed spending advice delivered to their wrists rather than their phones?