Bank technology

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.

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 our social media platforms.

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.

Fraud fighters have spotted a new form of ATM skimming device that is so small it's easy for the human eye to miss.

The Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday approved a bill that would expand information-sharing between the public and private sectors about cybersecurity threats.

With millions of malware strains targeting mobile devices today, bank CEOs and their security chiefs are understandably anxious. Here's a look at several defensive moves banks can make.

Opus Global, a $500 million fund started last fall to roll up financial technology businesses, has made its first acquisition, a risk and compliance software firm that serves banks.

Peer-to-peer lender Upstart is aiming to identify young but high-quality borrowers by integrating applicants' grades, alma mater and even their SAT scores into its underwriting decisions. Banks could learn from this model, even though it may have shortcomings.

The telco-operated Isis mobile payments initiative plans to rebrand to avoid carrying the same name as a Middle Eastern militant group referred to as "ISIS" by western journalists.

Wall Street's biggest trade group has proposed a government-industry cyber war council to stave off terrorist attacks that could trigger financial panic by temporarily wiping out account balances, according to an internal document.

R.C. Giltner Services says it can help smaller financial institutions sell reimagined checking accounts for a consumer base that's hankering for them.

A recent GAO report called for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to be involved in interagency discussions about virtual currencies, but others say the bureau's jurisdiction is murky, technology may move too fast for consumer rulemaking and too much regulation too early could kill innovation.

Many small banks lack the resources to make necessary investments in cybersecurity. One solution could be to institute regional centers that would allow banks to pool resources, train staff and investigate potential breaches.

In the banking world, branches came first and ATMs came later to streamline the experience. But in the Bitcoin world, ATMs came first with limited features, and the ATM makers are working hard to add the sort of services that one might find in a mainstream bank branch.

Google Inc.'s decision to remove some search results to a British Broadcasting Corp. 2007 article about Merrill Lynch & Co. has drawn criticism from the U.K. state-funded media company.