Bank technology

It took three or so days to settle stock trades. What if that could happen instantly and be recorded on a blockchain for everyone to see?

James Varga, chief executive of miiCard, discusses how today's backward identity-management system requires people to share more information than is really necessary just to prove who they are.

For all the excitement about the blockchain's potential to shake up the financial industry, few people understand how it works. The really revolutionary part of the blockchain process is how miners manage to keep records of transactions accurate and tamper-proof.

Hackers may have breached a database with information on 1.1 million customers of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield, a health insurer operating in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Customers Bancorp will offer free financial coaching to customers of its mobile-banking product who maintain higher monthly deposits.

VidVerify, a new company started by a co-founder of Lenders One, produces online videos that educate borrowers on the milestones of the mortgage process, while helping lenders ensure regulatory compliance.

A handful of banks are upgrading their apps with Siri-like "virtual assistants" that understand spoken questions at a time when most institutions don't even let digital customers do typed keyword searches of their transaction data.

Benjamin Lawsky, the New York regulator known for aggressive investigations and headline-grabbing fines against financial firms, is stepping down, and he reportedly plans to make a living offering banks and other companies advice.

Former Citigroup executive Deborah McWhinney has joined the board of IHS, a provider of information on markets and industries worldwide.

Let Target's settlement with MasterCard over the retailer's massive data breach serve as a reminder of the need for all participants in the payments system to play by the same set of rules.

Banks' technology investments are helpful but fail to ease customer concerns about the security of personal data, hidden fees and other problems, a new survey shows.

After the industry rejected a 2012 plan for speedier electronic payments, its authors made two key changes designed to win over banks that would have borne costs without seeing many benefits.

Critics concede Bitcoin's innovations may change finance but predict the system itself isn't long for this world. Nasdaq is challenging that idea by not only testing Bitcoin's much-vaunted blockchain technology, but doing so on the Bitcoin network.

Although more than half of younger shoppers are already willing to use wearables to make in-store payments, we are still firmly in the age of the smartphone.

The plan calls for the implementation of two new same-day settlement windows by March 2018. Fees that banks and credit unions will pay each other to cover the cost of the upgrades have been decreased.

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis said hackers succeeded in directing traffic from its popular economic-data websites in April to phony pages where they may have attempted to steal user names and passwords.

Ripple Labs, creator and a developer of the Ripple payment protocol and exchange network, has raised $28 million in series A funding, it announced Tuesday.

The fraud detection services provider Feedzai has raised $17.5 million in its Series B financing round.

Each time Elavon, a payments-processing unit of U.S. Bancorp, launches a new product, its R&D lab steals a page from rock 'n' roll history to mark the occasion.

BNY Mellon has launched Payment Analytics, a service that gives heavy users of wire transfers insight into their payments, with the goal of making them more efficient.