Bank technology

When it comes to mobile banking, the best approach may be to rely on mobile devices as little as possible.

Merchant reward programs, mobile payments and PFM dominated the first day of Finovate again this year. We pick some standouts.

Cambridge Savings Bank has added mobile check deposit to its mobile banking app.

Yahoo's board has formed a special committee to review Chief Executive Scott Thompson's academic credentials.

At $4.95 a month, JPMorgan Chase's new prepaid card undercuts even its student checking account. But its fee can't be waived with direct deposit or a high minimum balance — to get the card for free, users must link it to a JPMorgan Chase checking account.

CFE Federal Credit Union in Lake Mary, Fla., has selected Fiserv's Acumen account processing product with in-house delivery.

Citigroup is once again showing its willingness to venture outside of traditional banking to build a social media strategy, as it has in both its talent acquisition and content.

Automated Clearing House payments are cheap, but compared to other payment methods they are slow, and companies are constantly developing adaptations and alternatives to make such payments in real time.

MasterCard plans to launch PayPass Wallet Services later this year to enable bank and merchant customers to allow purchases in stores or online by paying with a tap of a smartphone, click of a computer mouse or touch of a tablet screen.

Can banks turn a single payment into a shopping spree? With mobile offers, edo Interactive says it's possible.

When Square launched its mobile card reader in 2009, VeriFone Systems was on its heels with PayWare Mobile. Now VeriFone is ready to roll out another Square rival, which it calls Sail.

I recently introduced the MasterCard Mobile Payments Readiness Index to a group of c-level bankers, and told them that one of our top-level findings is that it's the early days for mobile payments.

Mortgage pipelines are like cholesterol — they have good and bad versions. Bank of America is trying to unclog its buildup of distressed mortgages (the bad version) by using a new Web portal it developed with Equator.

The vast majority of consumers said they were satisfied with customer service in the financial services industry, according to fourth-quarter data from a Zendesk, which provides web-based customer support to a variety of industries.

The Kindle Fire isn't as capable as the iPad and it isn't as connected as a smartphone — but its mix of price and features makes it extremely well suited to serve the underbanked.

Barclays U.S. has started offering online-only, high-yield savings accounts and certificates of deposit to U.S. customers, in an effort to drum up deposits.

IMGCAP(1)]

'Security cocktails' enter the mix and merchants cling to PIN in the major security stories of the week through May 4.

Yahoo is under pressure from Third Point, one of its largest investors, to dismiss Chief Executive Scott Thompson after his academic computer science credentials were misrepresented.

As volumes and types of payments increase — particularly mobile payments using the ACH rails — securing ACH transactions becomes more complex and prone to crimes such as account takeover. Fiserv, Fundtech, and partners Jack Henry and ACH Alert are weighing in with different forms of layered verification.