Bank technology

Bank of America announced Thursday that it customers can now suspend their debit cards temporarily; it is the first of several new features the bank has planned for 2016 after it tripled its digital banking budget.

By selling its community banking products to Fiserv, ACI has signaled it is no longer interested is no longer interested in that space. Fiserv, meanwhile, is beefing up its small-institution offerings.

Unless banks devote the same amount of investment as standalone incubators, the innovation labs launched by financial institutions will be a short-term fad.

Moven, the digital-only "neobank," is partnering with online lenders as part of an effort to differentiate its services and become its users' go-to app for financial transactions of all sorts. Banks ought to pay close attention to this rebundling effort.

JPMorgan Chase customers will soon be able to withdraw cash using their mobile phones at the company’s ATMs.

Fintech is a chic topic at Davos, but it's barely a blip on the radar of analysts who lock in on hard numbers during earnings calls. Yet with tech taking a bigger role in financial services, mobile banking or the blockchain might soon become as topical as efficiency ratios or net interest margins.

Banks are looking to beef up ease and convenience in P-to-P payments to avoid being reduced solely to back-end payments processors for fintech startups.

Calls with analysts to discuss the fourth-quarter results were dominated by questions about energy exposure, efficiency and the growing worry about when the next credit cycle may begin. Still, some banks managed to get in a few thoughts about how technology is reshaping their businesses.

A new class of fintech startups is using loan applicants' social networks to determine creditworthiness as the banking industry debates the merits of alternate underwriting methods.

Progressives' push for a more drastic overhaul of the industry ignores post-crisis changes that have had an undeniably positive effect.