Bank technology

The transformation of brick-and-mortar offices into high-tech sales centers has become an urgent matter as consumers increasingly transact through digital alternatives, yet branches still generate more sales than any other channel.

Banks will leveraging the built-in camera, geolocation and identity features of phones and tablets in new and profitable ways.

Banks' security investments are rising dramatically as breaches grow more frequent and damaging.

Banks are purging paper to speed up processing like their business depends on it. The payoffs from these workflow improvements include faster processing, stronger loyalty, lower costs and higher revenue.

The bank's partnership with a hot payments startup comes as regulators nudge the industry to speed transactions and as some who initially resisted such calls start to embrace quicker settlement.

Jan Estep, president and CEO of Nacha, discusses the organization's revised proposal to speed transactions on the automated clearing house network and how it improves on the plan that member banks voted down two years ago.

Apple Pay scooped up one million payment cards in its first 72 hours, 60% of which were Visa cards, but MasterCard's chief executive still expressed optimism for the payment network's chances in the rapidly shifting mobile landscape.

CurrentC, the retailer-backed mobile-payment system touted as an alternative to Apple Inc.'s platform, was hacked during a test of the technology, resulting in some e-mail addresses being stolen over the past 36 hours.

About 60% of the first cards loaded onto Apple Pay are Visa cards, and the card network plans to build on this beginning in an aggressive mobile commerce strategy, according to CEO Charles Scharf.

While banks almost universally offer mobile services, such as smartphone apps or mobile-friendly websites, their customers have been slow to use them, according to an American Banker/SourceMedia Research white paper.

Because of the conflicting messages from providers of mobile payments, consumers are not yet sold on the possibility that they can use apps to replace their plastic cards.

Total System Services is close to beginning tests of new products and merchant services, and is already seeing a benefit from last week's launch of Apple Pay. But in prepaid, a significant business for the processor, TSYS is still awaiting new rules from the government.

Rather than wait until after a data breach to increase information-security investments, banks should put into place practices that help prevent cyberattacks in the first place.

It's surprising how much advice varies about how to respond to customer complaints on social media. Ignore small threats, some say, while others warn banks to respond immediately because they could go viral. Still others think banks should overhaul their whole customer experience to disarm critics.

Arthur Levitt, a former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has been named an adviser to two bitcoin companies.

Put Apple's Tim Cook and Alibaba's Jack Ma under the stars together and a partnership just might bloom.

Bank of America revealed its technology limitations to entrepreneurs at a company event in Silicon Valley, hoping some of the startups could provide assistance in areas like workflow and analytics.

Apple Inc. (AAPL)'s bid to replace the consumer wallet with its mobile payment system ran into a roadblock as CVS Health Corp. (CVS) and Rite Aid Corp. (RAD) disabled the technology in their drugstores.

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Capital One and Regions Financial are downplaying their interest in partnering with peer-to-peer lenders because of concerns about the risks associated with them.