Bank technology

To help make instant payments a reality, regulators here and abroad should encourage multiple approaches, thus avoiding the temptation to mandate a single solution.

Regulators are right to target overdraft and other fees as obstacles to banks offering affordable checking account options, but that’s just the beginning in developing transactional products that work for consumers.

More than half of all U.S. households have suffered a "financial shock" in the past five years. Some say mobile apps could help users brace for — and recover from — such setbacks.

Optimizing content for the mobile browser home page and its app is one of several changes Wells Fargo has been making this quarter. The updates underscore the growing importance of mobile.

Ryan Singer, CEO of startup Blockchain Health, explains how blockchain, multisignature and device ID technologies could give consumers greater control over their personal information — in this case, medical data — in the second part of a three-part conversation.Part I: 'Everyone Is Less Secure Over Time'

The ability to program value exchanges without risk of censorship, moderation or theft gives smart contracts a leg up in servicing users who lack a mainstream banking association.

Model legislation in the works would give state legislatures a template for regulating virtual currency businesses. The Treasury is lobbying against clear exemptions for firms that don't control customer funds.

In many cases, customers aren't staying with a bank's brand because they are satisfied. They are staying with the brand because it's too hard to leave.

Wells Fargo has agreed to pay the state of California $8.5 million to settle a probe into its failure to tell consumers it was recording their calls.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. and Digital Asset Holdings are targeting the repurchase agreement market as the latest use case for a blockchain solution.

The U.K. bank's new business unit takes advantage of the massive amount of data it stores to offer a new array of products and services, including managing customers' digital identities.

San Francisco Fed President John Williams discusses the potential for new fintech products to make predatory lending easier, whether big banks need to be broken up, and the likelihood of another recession.

Banks have to know a lot about their customers, who generally trust them to keep personal information secure. Who better to serve as digital identity providers in a post-password world?

Though the use of a digital identity may take years to go mainstream with consumers, BBVA Compass is thinking about the role that banks should play and taking steps toward being part of the solution.

Ryan Singer, CEO and cofounder of startup Blockchain Health, discusses the problems with the traditional "shared secrets" method of verifying identities, and the possibilities opened up by mobile computing devices.

The way we verify people are who they say they are must evolve to reflect new technologies like peer-to-peer platforms and the Internet of Things and the ways millennials live and work.

Around the world, technology companies, governments and even some banks are coming up with new, safer and easier ways for people to prove they are who they say they are. Generally the goal is to allow people to be authenticated once by a trusted identity provider (a role banks could play) rather than share sensitive information with countless third parties, as they do today. Here we highlight just a few of the many organizations innovating in this space.

Hackers penetrated the computer network of a Verizon Communications subsidiary, but the company says it plugged the hole before much data was compromised.

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.

Asking for static information like a mother's maiden name seems increasingly passé, since shared "secrets" can be stolen or gleaned from the Internet. But without a brilliant alternative, and done with care, knowledge-based authentication still has value.