Technology

Large companies are starting to embrace bot technology, with Mastercard, MoneyGram and Western Union all announcing new services.

Subway, Fresh Direct and The Cheesecake Factory are among the first to use Masterpass-enabled bots on Facebook Messenger to sell their wares over social media.

Bottomline Technologies, which specializes in business payments, is the latest to introduce a fraud-fighting solution for members of the Swift payment network.

For all the talk of cooperation and partnerships with banks, financial services startups are doing well in underserved niche markets such as actors and musicians.

Bank earns $75 million for saving Bass Pro Shops's acquisition of rival outdoor retailer; Trump to name Randal Quarles as Fed's vice chairman for bank supervision.

A freewheeling discussion (over beers) about the future of branches with Tom Brown of Second Curve Capital and Dave Martin of BankMechanics at the Trump National Doral hotel in Miami during American Banker’s Retail Banking 2017 conference.

Ripple's distributed ledger platform has fed an appetite for cheaper and more efficient cross-border payments, but it may not measure up to the needs of a larger market. Ripple wants to scale its payment system to something resembling a large card network.

Check imaging reduces the need to handle paper, reduces clearing time and paves the way for mobile deposit and remote capture. However, this new functionality also means financial institutions take on greater risk from electronic acceptance, images in the cloud, and significantly reduced float times.

The fiasco may hold a valuable lesson for fintechs and banks alike about the need for closer integration.

The partnership will explore emerging technologies and best practices, including lessons that can be learned from outside the CU system.