Bank technology

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.

Nasdaq has acquired SecondMarket Solutions, a New York software-as-a-service provider that focuses on helping companies prepare for an IPO.

Great news: Women snagged a handful of C-level titles at big companies this week, including Ellen Alemany, Kim Hammonds and Heather Cox, and Square stands out in Silicon Valley with a leadership team that's 60% women. Bad news: the gender pay gap is growing and there are only two women among Harvard's picks for the top 100 CEOs globally. Also in the news: Blackrock's Cheryl Mills, B of A's Cathy Bessant and ICICI's Chanda Kochhar.

The widespread adoption of online and mobile banking has largely happened at a time when rates have been near zero. At some point, rates will rise and the value of the experience will be pitted against the value of a yield for depositors. Rate-hoppers will be able to move at an unprecedented speed.

Recipients of the 2015 FinTech Forward awards discuss how banks can remain competitive with nimbler, innovative startups.

Industry representatives are howling about the lack of consumer benefit from the Durbin amendment, but we still know very little about the impact of the debit fee cap.

Skills Fund, which has raised $11.5 million in seed capital, is one of several lenders targeting students hoping to boost their salaries by quickly learning how to write computer code.

Furthering efforts to bring virtual currency mainstream, cryptocurrency companies and trade groups are teaming up to create a forum to aid law enforcement in weeding out criminal activity.

The head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warned software vendors that they face new scrutiny from regulators for causing mortgage lenders to miss the TRID-compliance deadline. He was vague about how far the CFPB might go, but many in the industry are prone to fear the worst.

Combing through data to find people who’ve paid for something twice or left their cash at the ATM helps the bank build goodwill with customers, says analytics chief Christian Nelissen.

Regions Financial in Birmingham, Ala., said its longtime head of operations and technology, Cindy Rogers, will retire at the end of the year.

So many banks are running systems that were implemented before 1984, the year Mark Zuckerberg was born. They’re going to be dead meat in the age of real-time connectivity in the near-free world of today’s mobile Internet.

NerdWallet said former Citigroup banker Simon Williams is joining the consumer finance startup advised by Vikram Pandit, swelling the ranks of senior financiers helping the company.

UniRush's transition to a new processor caused major service interruptions for users of its popular RushCard prepaid products.

While migration to cards with chip technology should help mitigate card fraud, additional steps by retailers and more layers of security are needed.

Deutsche Bank has appointed Kim Hammonds to its management board and promoted her to chief operating officer.

Housing finance reform in Congress is stalled, but Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (often under pressure from their regulator) are forming partnerships, developing new products and finding ways to share risk with the private sector to correct flaws in the housing system.

Two new apps, Penny and Sense, highlight customers' most pressing and interesting financial information without making them search for it. The apps, inspired by Google Now, come as banks worldwide try to provide more sophisticated mobile features.

In buying Germany's Wincor Nixdorf, Diebold would not only be eliminating a rival — it would also gain new technology and retail relationships vital to its success in an economy that is growing much less reliant on plastic cards.

Some banks have begun to look at social media posts and website meanderings to better understand their customers and improve digital marketing. The practice is legal, but raises ethical questions.