Bank technology

Royal Bank of Scotland will soon launch a customer pilot of Luvo, a chat bot taught to answer customers' questions in near-real time and route more complex requests to advisers using IBM Watson Conversation.

Mission Asset Fund has helped people build their credit by formalizing the informality of lending circles. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation recently named Mission's CEO José A. Quiñonez one of its 2016 Fellows.

A part of Manhattan dominated by technology companies — Google, Facebook, Twitter — is now drawing a more traditional New York industry: banking.

B of A's Merrill Lynch unit by early next year plans to join Charles Schwab, Fidelity Investments, BBVA Compass, U.S. Bancorp and others in offering clients a low-cost investing app and online service.

It's hard to sell a big bank something regardless of the tech company's size. But for early-stage startups with only a handful of employees and a product still under development, the challenge is far greater than for seasoned tech vendors.

The private student loan market is dominated by large players, but some community banks are turning to a third-party tech company to help them get in the game.

Strategies include developing formal agreements with partners defining the anti-money-laundering requirements and responsibilities that are expected of them.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. Comments are excerpted from reader response sections of AmericanBanker.com articles and our social media platforms.

Artificial intelligence like IBM's Watson may not make bank compliance officers obsolete, but it could mean far fewer of them will be needed in the future, focused on higher-level tasks.

IBM will purchase Promontory Financial Group — a consultancy so influential it has been dubbed the industry's "shadow regulator" — in a move that could extend artificial intelligence into every aspect of banking.