Bank technology

As bank customers’ tastes turn away from branches and toward mobile devices, banks are trying to replace the customer standby, the 800-number, with more modern communication media like SMS text and WhatsApp.

Capital One Financial has purchased another digital design studio as it works to deepen its reach in Silicon Valley.

WASHINGTON — The World Bank is wrapping up a global survey to examine if "de-risking" is leading banks to disassociate from remittance businesses in areas prone to money-laundering activities.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week, including ideas about how to improve disclosure requirements and ways to encourage banks and young tech firms to join forces.

Federal prosecutors are cracking down on violations of the Bank Secrecy Act — often without first clarifying to virtual currency firms and other industries the sort of behavior will get them in trouble.

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 from our social media platforms.

The new Amex Express Checkout service bears a passing resemblance to rival products like Visa Checkout, MasterPass and PayPal. But that similarity is only skin deep.

Hackers stole Social Security numbers and other personal data for about 21.5 million people in breaches of the U.S. government's personnel office, the Obama administration said.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has suggested that financial institutions get busy on implementing consumer protections for real-time and faster payments.

S&T Bancorp in Indiana, Pa., has promoted Jim Mill to chief information officer. In the newly created position, Mill will oversee the $6 billion-asset company's technology infrastructure and maintain its progress in offering new products.

A computer malfunction that knocked out trading at the New York Stock Exchange for more than three hours Wednesday probably stemmed from a software update that went awry, said two people briefed on a preliminary review.

Business went on as usual at commercial banks as the New York Stock Exchange and other large businesses suffered outages. But the confluence of events served as an unnerving reminder of the cyber risks facing the industry.

Greg Carmichael, a former IT executive, has been tapped to lead Fifth Third Bancorp, a move showing the growing importance of technology in banks' operations. He'll have to find new ways to grow revenue as he succeeds Kevin Kabat, under whom profitability has sagged recently.

As technological problems forced the New York Stock Exchange to grind to a halt Wednesday, financial services insiders and observers weighed in on the vulnerabilities of increasingly electronic financial systems.

Several large banks, including Citi and Bank of America, have begun sharing proprietary code with fintech startups and others. The new level of openness brings benefit to both sides.

While some predict that fintech startups will soon overthrow banks, a boom in partnerships between the two industries is far more likely. Startups will benefit from access to new markets and infrastructure, while banks will stay on the cutting edge of innovation.

Stephen Bohanon of Alkami, a vendor of online and mobile banking software, explains why tech companies serving financial institutions need to hire both industry veterans ("Jedis") and innovative outsiders ("Padawans").

Digital-only Atom Bank in the U.K. recently won a banking license — a feat U.S. fintech entrepreneurs have either failed to accomplish or not bothered trying, instead partnering with established institutions.

JPMorgan Chase has announced it will begin allowing employees to expense rides from the mobile-app powered black car service Uber.

A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. programmer who took the firm's high frequency trading code when he left for another job was exonerated a second time after a judge ruled what he did wasn't a crime.