Bank technology

As U.S. banks wrangle with account-aggregation sites over screen scraping, the U.K. is championing a safer method for sharing data that could transform the way customers interact with financial institutions.

The Bank for International Settlements acknowledges that people may have legitimate reasons to prefer an anonymous payment system.

Bryan Sullivan, the CFO at LoanDepot, talks about its growth prospects without fuel from an initial public offering, how getting consumers to opt for home equity lines of credit is tough, and why he considers the nonbank a disruptor.

Quicken Loans, the company that showed a mortgage business can operate successfully without face-to-face interaction with borrowers, is now giving customers the option to work without human loan officers.

On the first day Citizens Financial started financing iPhones it made more new loans than any bank ever did on one day, the head of the company’s consumer lending said.

The rapid growth of competition from nonbanks has the potential to hit community banks harder than the mortgage meltdown.

The goal of adopting chip cards — to provide tighter security — is a noble one. But by going partway, authorizing transactions with signatures rather than four-digit codes, banks are watering down that security, at least for lost and stolen cards.

Diebold and Wincor Nixdorf — which plan to merge under the name "Diebold Nixdorf" — were already in the midst of major projects to digitize bank branches and retail stores before the pressure from mobile devices led them to join forces to keep pace with innovation.

The proliferation of easy-to-use analytics tools has allowed community banks to do what used to take teams of quants to accomplish. Some are using it to get an edge in M&A, others are using it to improve efficiency.

As shopping goes digital, so does fraud. The rise in technology at shoppers' fingertips provides many new channels for scammers to exploit, often leaving banks holding the bag.