Bank technology

The mobile financial services startup said Monday that Alex Sion, a former senior vice president of wealth management executive at Citigroup (NYSE: C) who most recently headed the financial services arm of marketing firm SapientNitro, has joined the company as president.

By linking payments to mobile phone numbers, Payfone is hoping to avoid keystrokes for in-store mobile transactions. As the firm ramps up for a pilot this fall, it's found an early merchant acquiring partner in remote payment tech firm CardinalCommerce, which potentially opens the system up to thousands of stores.

Citigroup (C) has added to its collateral management product, OpenCollateral, an option for automated collateral position reconciliation through Swift.

Buffalo-based M&T is offering myriad alerts and customizations of alerts, including "do not disturb" windows in which the bank should leave the customer alone.

Quick response codes seem straightforward, but they're one more playground for cybercriminals.

Beyond serving as the launch pad for more than 60 fintech products and services, FinovateFall, the two-day event held in Manhattan last week, got fintechies to tweet their hearts out about the presenters, their offerings and the temperature of the conference center. Here are our top 10 favorite tweets from the innovation conference:

Bank Marketing Strategy blogger Jim Marous, former senior director of marketing services at Harland Clarke, has been recruited to direct marketing agency New Control.

Chief Technology Officer Tim Lenoff discusses how the bank melds technology and customer conversations to head off fraud.

For banks to tap into the full potential of advanced analytics, they should address some difficult challenges, including vast quantities of poorly organized data, inadequately skilled staff and risk management operations still stuck in silos.

Brian Pearce, head of mobile channels for Wells Fargo, says the bank is ushering in a "mobile unique" era.

SunTrust is making five days' worth of imaged checks available on its new app for Apple and Android devices.

Improving the customer experience was a major theme emerging from the demos displayed during day two of FinovateFall, a two-day event showcasing financial services innovations from startups and established fintech companies.

Bruce Livesay, CIO of First Horizon, shares his views on how traditional branches and digital channels will evolve over the next few years.

Mortgage lenders get clarity from Fannie and Freddie; Capital One CEO fears competition from mobile players; former IndyMac CEO fights the SEC.

Dynamics Inc., a provider of payment cards that can dynamically rewrite their magnetic stripes or smart chips, unveiled another variant of its design this week.

Barclaycard US says it will work with Google Inc. to support the Google Wallet mobile payment system.

Fresh off new government guidance on cloud computing, firms such as CipherCloud and Coalfire are knocking on banks' doors with technology designed to increase security and protect data.

Isis, the mobile-payment joint venture backed by AT&T, Verizon T-Mobile, won't debut by the end of September as planned, extending delays for a service once expected to start by the end of June.

The payment software company plans to add Distra's services-oriented solution to its portfolio.

Small LowellBank is turning to Jack Henry for teller automation and online bill pay as well as core automation.