Bank technology

Banks are increasingly focusing on smartphones and tablets as the primary platforms with which to engage customers. But do they really understand how Americans use mobile devices?

Jacob Dienelt, a former financial adviser at Morgan Stanley, has joined Factom, a cryptocurrency tech startup, as its head treasurer.

Malicious software that blows past antivirus software undetected, combined with sophisticated social engineering (i.e. tricking employees of bank customers into divulging information), have enabled criminals to steal $500,000 to $1 million at a time, security experts say.

A key deadline for anti-fraud card technology is prompting more retailers and banks to take a hard look at mobile payments platforms.

Merchants are making a new argument in their years-long battle with banks over swipe fees, saying Apple Pay has locked them out of additional routing options mandated by Dodd-Frank.

Fees for prepaid debit cards have shifted in the last year, with some transaction charges becoming less common while automated-teller-machine fees rose, according to a new study.

Encryption still vastly outpaces tokenization as a means of defending data in the cloud, according to a new report from a cloud data cybersecurity firm, CipherCloud.

Industry groups are crying foul over how a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposal to regulate prepaid cards would affect overdraft services and treat virtual currencies.

FICO and two data partners are testing a credit score based on alternative data that could help banks take smarter risks on borrowers with limited credit histories, but bankers' cost concerns and adherence to traditional methods present big hurdles.

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 social media platforms.

FIS has designated a permanent area in its San Francisco office to test and showcase mobile banking and payment apps, highlighting the pressure on traditional vendors to stay current on emerging technologies and recruit young tech talent.

The administration's new step empowers Treasury to freeze assets of those behind attacks that harm the U.S. financial system or other "critical" infrastructures.

The technology, still in its early development stages, will analyze Home Mortgage Disclosure Act files prior to formal submission to the regulator so lenders can spot and fix errors faster.

Event-stream processing software can now do things like predict a customer will leave.

D+H says it wants to help banks with the adoption and integration of new payment origination channels.

Market data cloud solutions provider Xignite has selected a group of entrepreneurs who made best use of an Xignite market data API at the Capital One People & Money Hackathon earlier in March, placing them among the many programmers and developers honored for their work at the event.

The mock-up office is letting PNC resolve issues that would have been costly and time-consuming to fix on the Pittsburgh tower site.

Two former federal agents who helped investigate the illegal Silk Road Internet drug emporium were charged with pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars in digital money.

D+H in Toronto has agreed to buy the global payments solutions firm Fundtech.

The financial industry and the Federal Reserve are finally on the same page about the U.S. payment system's need for speed. But achieving consensus about what the new system should look like remains a tall order.