Bank technology

PayPal has agreed to acquire Xoom for $890 million, as the consumer payments company looks to expand into the international remittances business.

PayPal, Amazon, Square and American Express have all built new businesses by extending credit to merchants that already rely on their payment networks. Their client relationships give them certain advantages over banks, marketplace lenders and others.

Always-connected workers report feelings of guilt as well as privacy concerns around the use of mobile devices for personal matters at work, and vice versa. Bank CIOs are facing this challenge with software tools and mobile device management policies.

Green Dot MoneyPak cards were phased out late last year because of fraud concerns, but they are finding a new life on Netflix. The hit show "Orange Is the New Black" features the prepaid reload cards in a storyline in the women's prison that houses the main characters.

Blythe Masters, the former JPMorgan Chase executive, has joined the advisory board of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, a Bitcoin trade association created to represent the young industry's interests in Washington.

The executive in charge of protecting JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s computer network from hackers has been reassigned, after a year on the job that included controversy over his handling of a massive data breach and the departure of several top security team members.

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators on Tuesday unveiled a much-anticipated tool meant to help institutions assess their own cybersecurity systems.

The agency's Semiannual Risk Perspective pinpointed compliance and operational risk as potential problems for big banks while it outlined a different set of challenges for midsize and community banks.

As manufacturers increasingly equip automobiles with Internet access, bankers and technologists are envisioning a day when cars could be used to make payments, inform risk underwriting and deliver targeted offers.

Nationwide Bank in Columbus, Ohio has created an online car loan service that allows consumers to secure financing and insurance and shop for a car purchase.

As investment dollars flood into the alternative lending sector, fueling the rapid growth of early entrants such as Lending Club, lots of smaller online loan platforms are also popping up. Many of these new firms are specializing in narrow lending niches, touting their expertise in underwriting particular forms of credit. Here's a rundown of some of these specialties.

The Internet of Things, blockchains and smart (not "big") data could help financial institutions fend off disruption in lending, payments and money management, according to the Spanish bank's fintech mavens.

You'll find many disruptors in banking, but startups like Moven aren't among them. In essence, virtual banks simply dress up web storefronts to look like banks but offer one-tenth the services.

Fintech startups continue to captivate venture capital firms and angel investors, giving a boost to a program in which the operators of startups get advice from mentors and make presentations to hundreds of bankers at an annual event in New York.

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week, including a proposal to regulate banks based on their activities rather than size and a plea for members of Congress to take action to help community banks.

In order for a blockchain to succeed, it needs to be a public resource. That means few alternative blockchains are likely to achieve much traction outside a small niche.

USAA is the lead investor in a venture-capital funding round for a developer of mobile applications for automobiles.

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.

Digital Asset Holdings, the blockchain technology startup led by JPMorgan Chase alum Blythe Masters, is expanding its capabilities by acquiring other such firms.

Banks need to take a hard look at the age-old practice of using signatures to authenticate card payments, Federal Reserve Gov. Jerome Powell said Thursday.