Bank technology

Check, a bill pay app owned by Intuit, has launched a feature some financial institutions have been positioning as a competitive differentiator: the ability to pay paper bills using the smartphone camera.

People's United (PBCT) in Bridgeport, Conn., has started a payments firm in partnership with Vantiv in a move that aided the company's quarterly results.

The 100 new enterprise apps the two companies are creating will target specific "pain points" for the industries.

A simple loan payment calculator is proving surprisingly fruitful for Alliant Credit Union.

Sageworks, a credit-risk management, analysis and valuation solutions provider in Raleigh, N.C., has launched a cloud-based bank and credit union data platform for banks, investors and banking industry vendors.

New York's financial regulation chief is proposing a "BitLicense" regulatory regime that he says will protect consumers and root out wrongdoing without stifling innovation by virtual-currency businesses in the state.

The plan was for Kang Gao to do his exit interview with Two Sigma Investments LLC, a $21 billion quantitative hedge fund in New York, and jump to Citadel LLC, a rival firm in Chicago.

Ally Bank, the direct bank subsidiary of Ally Financial in Midvale, Utah, has launched an internally developed mobile banking app designed for larger screen iPad devices.

IBM is creating new apps for banks their employees can use on iPhones and iPads. In doing so, Big Blue will help banks push legacy applications out to new devices, making many types of work possible on Apple devices.

Startups that focus on person-to-person payments or peer-to-peer lending may well be the future heavyweights of the financial services industry. Banks must either band together to create viable alternatives or risk losing relevance.

More merchants are interested in accepting payments on tablets and phones, and they have many choices of providers. What are banks and vendors doing to set themselves apart?

In a deal that will provide a new option for banks that provide mobile devices to their employees or let them use their own phones and tablets for work, Apple and IBM announced last night that they co-developing a set of enterprise mobile apps and services.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew urged Congress and financial companies to step up their fight against cyber threats, saying malicious acts pose a risk to national security and financial stability.

Twenty years ago, the decentralized open architecture of the Internet was inspiring entrepreneurs worldwide to build products and services while skeptics rolled their eyes and wondered why anyone would want to use this slow, rudimentary, obscure technology. Jeremy Allaire, a veteran of the early Web days and now the CEO of startup Circle Internet Financial, sees parallels between that era and the current state of digital money.

Many banks' legacy systems were built decades ago and are maintained by folks nearing retirement. The challenge for CIOs is finding talented young recruits who are as well-versed in old technologies as they are new ones.

Security breaches exposing consumers' personal information are becoming larger and more frequent in New York, costing businesses more than $1.37 billion last year, the state attorney general's office said.

Banks that want to stay ahead of the digital curve should consider hub-and-spoke branch models, products that blend digital and physical services and innovation labs that allow creative thinkers to experiment — and even to fail.

WSECU recently updated its app to include the approval — and funding — of small-dollar loans for existing checking account members who are in need of quick capital.

The ATM maker and bank technology provider Diebold has named Sal Mahbouba as vice president of global services.

Independence Bancshares (IEBS) in Greenville, S.C., will need to raise more capital to fund its development of new payments platforms.