Bank technology

Blockstream, a tech startup that employs several core developers of the bitcoin protocol, has raised $55 million in venture capital to develop its sidechain technology and expand its global operations.

WASHINGTON — The current financial regulatory structure is ill-suited for innovation, but a legislative effort to fix that may still be a long way off, according to top House Republican lawmakers.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is urging banks to perform due diligence and identify potential risks before conducting business with marketplace lenders.

SunTrust Banks in Atlanta said Tuesday that it has created a new line of business specializing in the payments and technology industry.

Cross-border payments, even small ones, take days to clear, cost 5% to 10% of the payment amount, and can be baffling to the consumer. Zenbanx, TransferWise and Ripple and other startups are trying to change this.

The largest institutions moved to the top of J.D. Power's rankings, thanks largely to the popularity of their digital offerings and high scores among young adults.

Bank of America has nearly three dozen patents pending related to blockchains. More banks are expected to seek patents as the technology associated with cryptocurrencies creeps closer to widespread use.

The best customer prospects are specific individuals, so don't fall into the trap laid by surveys and articles that recommend a grand pitch to Generation Y as a marketing strategy.

Univest believes its subscription-based pricing model may have solved a persistent fee conundrum – charging small-business customers for various services without irking them.

Bank of America is preparing to submit 20 blockchain-related patents any day now to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, CNBC reported this week, citing a company spokesperson.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has partnered with the blockchain technology company Blockstream to bring distributed-ledger and smart-contract technology to its clients.

HSBC is testing a new money management app that uses push notifications to nudge customers into saving more and spending less.

Federal and state banking regulators are still struggling with how to come to grips with banks whose clients are heavily involved in digital currencies like bitcoin — and that may be curbing interest from many in the financial industry.

HSBC said a cyber attack temporarily shut down its Internet banking on Friday, the second time the bank's online services have been disrupted in the U.K. this month.

The potential for more convergence between financial products and physical products raises a whole host of data and privacy issues that banks must deal with proactively.

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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.