Bank technology

The banks' Finlabs program is seeking growth-stage firms that could eventually work with several of their business lines.

More than a decade ago, bankers fought Walmart tooth and nail as it made forays into banking. But with Amazon making more moves into financial services, the reaction is very different.

AxiomGo is being offered to customers seeking alternatives to prepaid cards and traditional checking accounts.

Behavioral biometrics are attractive because they are easy to implement, hard for criminals to spoof and not subject to the same privacy protections applied to thumbprints or retina scans.

Employees at the second-largest Indian bank falsified documents in a scheme that ultimately cost the institution at least $2 billion. Some argue a distributed ledger would have helped prevent or minimize the fraud.

One fintech has a new twist on gamification — tie savings contributions to achievement in the most popular games.

The Berlin company hopes to shake up the U.S. market with real-time, mobile-first, millennial-friendly banking, and the new infusion of cash from Allianz and Tencent will help.

The bank will enable customers to access its 2,500 ATMs via mobile banking.

The main problem is that Amazon's Alexa, Apple’s Siri and Google Assistant can’t yet verify a person’s identity. But there are already workarounds for that issue — and the tech giants may solve it soon.

The bank’s distributed ledger for private equity deals can now provide nodes to auditors, so they can easily access documents and data for their annual reviews.

Banks should adopt a more collaborative process to usher in innovation and refine digital strategy, says SunTrust CIO Scott Case.

Legacy financial firms like the big credit bureau are seeking out financial technology to diversify themselves, bring new products to market faster and meet the needs of global customers.

Fundbox is testing a payments and credit network for small businesses and their business clients that may offer an alternative to traditional lenders, credit card issuers and supplier financing.

American Express Ventures has become an investor in the startup EverCompliant, which helps financial institutions root out e-commerce websites backed by terrorists and drug cartels that are laundering money through payments-processing networks.

OCBC Bank in Singapore has seen a 35% reduction in false positives in its tests of artificial intelligence-based anti-money-laundering software. Other banks could follow its lead, though there are regulatory and customer-protection questions.

Franklin Synergy and MidFirst both plan to deploy the online lending platform, which according to its creator can render loan decisions in just under three minutes.

Many of the companies in our inaugural Best Fintechs to Work For ranking share a willingness — even an eagerness — to involve rank-and-file staff in decisions about how the company is run.

The retail lending unit of Marlette Funding meets regularly to make sure all employees are invested in its quarterly goals.

The venture capital firm Anthemis seeded 21 fintech startups in its first discretionary fund, which raised $106 million. It favors management teams made up of people from all walks of life who have fresh ideas about shaking up banking and insurance.

Disruptors would get a powerful new competitor if Amazon began offering checking accounts, but such a move would also validate the notion that fintechs are the future.