Bank technology

Five Star Bank, which is based in a rural part of New York state, has embraced digital lending, banking-as-a-service, real-time payments, bitcoin and more. “Those that don’t innovate don’t survive,” says Chief Administrative Officer Sean Willett.

The bank’s unified digital plans include personalization and a customized mobile dashboard encompassing all the business a customer does with BofA.

The work of creating a possible digital dollar inched ahead Thursday with research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston into the code that could eventually support such a currency.

The bank is working with a tech company to personalize customer communications using proprietary data. It's an alternative to cookies, which are becoming less viable as data privacy laws become stricter.

A group of community banks and two major trade associations have formed a partnership with and invested in the fintech NYDIG to offer the service on the banks’ mobile apps by midyear. The banks say it will help them generate revenue and retain customers interested in cryptocurrency.

New York Community Bank and Synovus Bank are among the founding members of the group, which will use the US Dollar Forward stablecoin on the Provenance blockchain.

The Change Company, a lender to Black, Hispanic and low-income borrowers, was set to merge with the former quarterback’s blank-check company. Steven Sugarman, a onetime Banc of California chief, says his company is now in talks with other investors and inviting banks to use a new digital marketplace for its loans.

Both traditional financial institutions and neobanks — including NorthOne, Novo and BMO Harris Bank — are developing technology to meet the needs of younger small-business owners.

Banks and credit unions that cater to members of the armed forces are partnering with fintechs or patenting their own tools to help users convert currency, borrow money and handle financial matters in environments with unreliable internet service.

Personalized advice, embedded finance and virtual branches are among the initiatives financial services companies have on their drawing boards for the coming year.

Large banks explored the concept more than five years ago before quietly moving on. The advent of stablecoins and general acceptance of blockchains have helped make it more practical for some regionals.

Banks have extra reason to be concerned by the news that a commonly used piece of software could be exploited by hackers.

The mission of the North Carolina company, founded by banks to archive digital images of checks, has evolved over the last 20 years. It is migrating to a public cloud to help it expand beyond check services.

A dispersed workforce presents added cybersecurity challenges resulting from employees accessing their organization’s networks through a home connection. This new reality reinforces the need for financial institutions to transform their digital infrastructure to guard against breaches.

Some established financial technology companies like Robinhood are said to be refusing to accept funds from accounts at young digital-only banks that they say are growing too fast to deter fraud. The companies being blocked respond that it’s an unfair, scattershot approach.

The consumer bureau asked for public feedback about payment platforms as part of a focus on the Silicon Valley giants’ financial services aspirations. But comment letters so far have been dominated by users complaining that they lost money on the big-bank-owned peer-to-peer network.

The Pennsylvania bank run by Sam Sidhu is updating its platform to support real-time payments for cryptocurrency companies and will offer embedded finance and banking-as-a-service to fintechs.

Asenso Finance and a community development financial institution, the National Asian American Coalition, have developed a loan aimed at borrowers with limited credit histories. The underwriting relies in part on alternative data and borrowers are required to take financial literacy courses.

An audit found most of the biggest banks and largest community banks fail to meet basic Americans with Disabilities Act rules for website and app readability. U.S. Bank does more than most to make digital channels accessible.