Bank technology

A recap of the informed opinions (and the discussions they generated) on BankThink this week.

The Wells Fargo Digital Lab, which opened in late September, offers a glimpse of what banking could look like in years to come.

The Fed's hotly-anticipated road map outlining plans to speed up the U.S. payment system will call for the creation of several industry-led task forces and recommend building a new infrastructure to facilitate real-time payments.

The payments company and big-bank trade group plans to create a ubiquitous, real-time payment system over the coming years, supplementing the push for same-day settlement of ACH transactions.

Some customers have reported double charging, others that their bank isn’t supported as promised. But some glitches are inevitable with a new service and processors say on the whole, the rollout has been relatively smooth.

Even though Apple has more than 500 banks lined up to support Apple Pay, including heavyweights like Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, some bank executives are taking a decidedly defensive stance.

Apple Pay is a watershed moment that will do more to stimulate mobile commerce than the sum of all previous efforts. But it also has an impact on branding that should make it part of a broader mobile menu for banks and retailers.

To win over younger customers, banks must offer free products that work straight out of the box, while also reducing red tape. To hire the best millennial-generation employees, banks need to appeal to younger workers' global values.

PHOENIX — Apple enters the mobile wallet world in a stronger position than most of its rivals, largely because it sought the support of card networks and banks before the first Apple Pay transaction ever took place.

Banks are bound to confront knotty privacy questions as they strive to make smarter use of customer data and experiment with technologies like wireless beacons, geolocation and algorithm-recommended offers.

Staples Inc., the world&'s largest office-supply chain, is investigating a potential breach of customer credit-card data, becoming the latest retailer to confront a threat from hackers in recent months.

A few hours into Apple Pay's Oct. 20 launch, Apple CEO Tim Cook promised the company was not looking to exploit its payments data.

Digital currency startups are trying to reframe the debate surrounding customer privacy, anti-money-laundering compliance and data security by backing a new set of guidelines for managing consumers' online identities.

Bank of England Gov. Mark Carney is facing scrutiny on the management of Britain's payments system after the biggest disruption in seven years delayed bank transfers and house purchases.

John Ikard, a Colorado bank CEO and incoming chairman of the American Bankers Association, hopes to score a few legislative victories on behalf of bankers, who he says have spent years on the defensive.

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An executive order signed by President Obama on Friday that mandated the adoption of chip-and-PIN technology in government cards and enabled its use in facilities like post offices smacks of politics over substance, analysts said.

Among the most intriguing aspects of DocMagic's $1.2 million acquisition of eSignSystems is the relationships DocMagic now has with vendors that private label eSignSystems technology, many of whom compete with its own document preparation software.

New York regulator Benjamin Lawsky may use the cybersecurity rules he's proposed for virtual-currency companies as a model for traditional banks. That would subject the financial institutions his agency supervises to the most stringent data-security rules anywhere.

The White House is slated to unveil a major package of initiatives on Friday to increase data security for financial transactions, including an executive order to add chip-and-PIN technology to government-issued credit and debit cards.