Bank technology

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.

For the sanity of the IT department and to ease regulators' concerns, more banks are looking at mobile device management software to manage, secure and back up employees' phones and tablets. Increasingly workers want to use their personal devices for work, too.

Fiserv and ChannelNet have added a feature to LoanLink, their borrower self-service tool, that lets distressed consumers apply online to restructure their mortgage or installment loans.

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Small credit union is testing a tech-based solution to an old-world problem: busy branch lobbies.

In the world of official corporate comments, give peer-to-peer lender Lending Club a gold star. A rival firm, Upstart, says that one of its co-founders, Paul Gu, applied to Lending Club for a loan and was offered a high interest rate, but Lending Club challenged that tale in a humorous rebuttal.

Banks approved a greater portion of small-business loan applications in June compared with last year, an indicator of an improving economy, according to a Biz2Credit study issued this week.

Protiviti in Menlo Park, Calif. has developed a new module companies can use to develop and manage an anti-corruption program that aids compliance with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and other anti-corruption laws.

Push notifications offer banks and credit card issuers a unique way to communicate with a generation that's skeptical of the financial industry but fond of technology and hungry for deals.