Bank technology

For much of the year William P. Foley 2d has voiced frustration over what he calls the stock market’s failure to value Fidelity National Financial Inc. as the financial-technology dynamo it has become.

Now that many banks are offering online bill-payment services for free, some are looking for ways to sweeten the offer.

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Wells Fargo & Co. announced Monday that it is joining the growing list of banks offering free person-to-person money transfers.

Some people just cannot do without online banking.

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

Microsoft Corp., one of the largest front-end software pro-viders to the financial industry, plans to announce today an initiative that will position it as a consultant to banks.

Wachovia Corp., which quit the retail lockbox business in February, is returning to the high-volume, low-value processing business with a network of "wholetail" lockbox centers.

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Financial technology executives a year ago were predicting that by fall 2004, as soon as the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act took effect, there would be a wholesale shift by banks to settling transactions with images.

Using biometrics to authenticate customers' identity is not new, but most consumers have long considered the technology intrusive and somewhat unnerving.

InterCept Inc.'s shareholders have approved its $408.2 million acquisition by Fidelity National Financial Inc.

The Citigroup Inc. spinoff i-flex solutions ltd. of Bangalore, India, which created Flexcube, the world's top-selling core processing software, hopes its new version will help it crack the U.S. market.

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

Corporate and correspondent clients are becoming more comfortable with transactions over the Internet, so major banks are pushing online foreign exchange trades.