Bank technology

Hackers may have breached U.S. government personnel records more than once, accessing data on employee background investigations, the White House said on Friday.

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A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week, including the pitfalls of using alternative data to score "credit invisibles" and whether Benjamin Lawsky's successor should play nice with big banks.

A call to improve customers' digital-banking experience was the top theme during SourceMedia's Digital Banking Summit. Banks should imitate the Apples and Googles of the world, not each other, experts said.

Terrorism financiers are exploring the use of virtual currencies such as bitcoin to fund their operations as authorities crack down on the flow of illicit money through more traditional channels, the U.S. Treasury Department said.

American Banker readers share their views on the most pressing banking topics of the week, from the qualities we should look for in the next sheriff of Wall Street to overdraft fee regulation. Comments are excerpted from reader response sections of AmericanBanker.com articles and from our social media platforms.

A Federal Trade Commission crackdown on a failed Kickstarter campaign may presage closer government scrutiny of peer-to-peer lending.

In several wide-ranging discussions at the Digital Banking Summit, speakers raised issues around protecting mobile apps — including the question of when millennials will start to care about mobile app security.

The Spanish-language TV channel Univision has launched a new online small-business lending platform.

Citizens Financial in Providence, R.I., has signed a five-year agreement to outsource some of its IT infrastructure to IBM.

Marketplace lending company Lending Club is teaming up with a California-based nonprofit organization to make loans to small businesses that otherwise would have had their applications rejected.

The mortgage lender Nationstar Mortgage Holdings is pouring a lot of energy into a digital and mobile homebuying platform called Xome. The strategy could attract tech-savvy millennials but carries plenty of risks including whether consumers would be improperly steered to its products.

Prosper Marketplace, the first peer-to- peer lender in the U.S., is planning to charge an extra fee to investors who want to bundle its loans into bonds in order to offset its increased costs from the securitization process.

The digital currency world is readying itself for more regulatory penalties over the failure to meet Bank Secrecy Act and anti-money-laundering requirements following federal agencies' action against Ripple Labs last month.

The "Digital Bankers of the Year" for 2015 selected by Bank Technology News are innovators pushing their organizations to better serve customers. Their high-tech efforts range from reaching the underbanked in Africa to helping prospective homebuyers look beyond the "for sale" sign through a mobile app.

Diebold contacted Wincor Nixdorf about a potential acquisition last week, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential.

Bank Technology News has chosen five bankers to be our 2015 Digital Bankers of the Year. They’re creating apps and sites that are engaging, relevant and personalized.

Citi was one of the first banks to open its application programming interfaces to outside developers, leading a movement that's picking up momentum. For this and other efforts, Bank Technology News has chosen Heather Cox as its top 2015 Digital Banker of the Year.

As it continues to build innovative features in its digital apps, such as its own virtual assistant and biometric authentication, USAA is trying to make a one-on-one connection with its members, says Christopher Cox, head of digital experience delivery for the San Antonio company.

Jamie Armistead is focusing Bank of the West's mobile and online efforts on design principles.