Bank technology

The Bancorp in Wilmington, Del., is looking for a new chief executive. The $4.7 billion-asset company said that Frank Mastrangelo resigned as CEO to become its technologist in residence.

As the digital era continues to force banks to rethink what and who they are, institutions are increasingly pressured to relay their brand messages to consumers through newer mediums and in emotional ways rather than hard sales pitches.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week. Comments are excerpted from reader response sections of AmericanBanker.com articles and our social media platforms.

The Dec. 2 mass shooting has shone a light on the sector's vulnerability to borrowers who, exploiting the absence of face-to-face contact on the Internet, lie on their loan applications.

Even though Walmart has been a key member and driving force behind the Merchant Customer Exchange joint venture to establish a new mobile wallet, the retailer's addition of Walmart Pay to its mobile app is consistent with strategy, and will lead to a wave of individual bank and retailer initiatives.

Despite their own vast resources, some large banks are partnering with fintech startups to help them meet the needs of one of their trickiest market segments: small businesses

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a global messaging network better known as Swift, has announced an initiative designed to increase the speed and transparency of cross-border payments.

Angus Deaton's efforts to improve understanding of poverty have helped open the door to financial services firms meeting the market demands of the world's poor.

The House Financial Services Committee approved a data security bill Tuesday that would require all financial companies to have similar security protections and notification requirements as banks.

Umpqua Holdings wants other banks to join its recently announced innovation lab in Silicon Valley. The company says if smaller banks pool resources they can compete with the deep pockets of the big banks in disruption.

Washington Federal is the latest bank to partner with a tech company in an effort to streamline online loan applications.

Major cloud, consulting and software providers like Microsoft and Deloitte are plugging "blockchain as a service" for financial institutions that want to experiment with this technology without making huge investments.

Ex-banker Frank Rotman, now a venture capitalist who focuses on marketplace lending, has a unique vantage point on the competition for small-business loans between banks and Web-based upstarts, as well as on both sides' strengths and weaknesses.

A customer's social media presence provides a window to the soul, which a more traditional credit history cannot touch.

The core-processing vendor FIS wants to dream big like fintech startups when it comes to developing future services, but it also seeks to be large enough to offer multiple services in an era when banks are cutting back on third-party providers.

The debate over whether signatures or PINs are a stronger security feature overlooks the fact that neither is the most important defense against fraud.

The vaguely defined term needs an overhaul to meet the financial demands of refugees and others long ignored by efforts to expand banking access.

Banks have a lot of work to do to modernize branches and keep their technology on par with other businesses' digital tools. Here are some ideas worth borrowing from retailers, restaurants and consumer electronics makers if banks haven't adopted them already, says appointment-software firm Financial Management Solutions.

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KeyCorp is partnering with fintech firms to offer innovative payments products to its commercial clients, as interest in payments technology begins to spill over from retail into commercial.