Bank technology

Banks are stepping up their efforts to become corporate financial advisers rather than just places to store money, even if those efforts hurt fee and interest revenue.

Acquiring VeriSign Inc.’s payment gateway business would give PayPal Inc. a significant boost in transaction volume and a new customer base that it covets, as well as making the eBay Inc. subsidiary a more direct competitor to banks.

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The San Francisco biometric payments company Solidus Networks Inc. plans to double the number of retail stores using its fingerprint scanners this year — and increase it nearly fiftyfold next year.

Bankers are learning that some of the online services they offer to consumers are also appealing to small businesses — and vice versa.

Nacha, the electronic payments association, has started using a security feature developed by The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC that makes it safer for companies to send automated clearing house payments.

SunTrust Banks Inc. is installing software designed to keep it from processing the same check twice.

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Banks are slowly starting to install check-imaging technology in automated teller machines.

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The table lists daily composite stock prices at 4 PM (unless otherwise noted) as measured by market capitalization.

Banks have long archived data by using couriers to haul backup tapes to long-term-storage facilities, but transmitting the information electronically is becoming more affordable - and, bankers say, necessary.

National City Corp.’s new online account-opening system is bucking conventional wisdom by trying to sell applicants additional products and services.