Bank technology

More consumers are completing banking transactions, like paying a bill, through online and mobile services, a new survey from Fiserv has found.

Although consumers state a preference for receiving bank information through mobile text alerts, banks are still using older methods such as mass mail for much of their outbound communications with customers.

For a digital wallet to work, the merchant’s point-of-sale system should have the same applications as the phone supporting the wallet. To ensure that consistency, VeriFone says its Paymedia universal acceptance platform will make that connection regardless of wallet provider or mobile network.

As companies like Google, Starbucks and the leading cellular carriers move aggressively into mobile payments, banks face strategic and technological challenges to maintaining their supremacy in moving money around.

JPMorgan Chase, Capital One and Barclays will enable their customers to use a mobile-payments service being developed by several wireless carriers starting this summer.

An edgy anti-bank message can work well in social media marketing, but only if it also conveys a better alternative from the company behind it.

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Payments hardware company Ingenico announced Thursday it has taken a controlling interest in Roam Data of Boston.

Interoperability among mobile-payments stakeholders is still a work in progress, says the Mobey Forum, which includes B of A, Nokia and others. True cooperation will be easier said than done.

Discover's Pulse network is the latest offer person-to-person payment capabilities from Obopay. But widespread consumer demand seems to be lacking, as does a clear business case for financial institutions.

Strong fourth-quarter earnings for French terminal maker Ingenico signal good news for the payments industry, and likely for Europe's economy overall.

Yet another emerging payment scheme sees an opportunity to claw at the soft underbelly of legacy point-of-sale payment systems, this time putting carriers — not banks — in control of the payment accounts.

Looking to lengthen branch hours and increase transaction speed while containing staff costs, the Pittsburgh area bank is deploying new ATMs from NCR and uGenius that allow customers to speak to a live teller on screen.

Software lets small business set up mobile storefronts and process mobile payments.

IronKey announced its new Enterprise Service, an addition to its Trusted Access security suite.

The bank says lots of merchants won't take cards for very small purchases. So it's using chip and PIN, and aggregated stored value POS technology, to increase use of contactless mobile and card payments.

It's awards season and consulting firm Corporate Insight recently rolled out the proverbial red carpet for its tenth annual Bank Monitor Awards, which honor banks with gold, silver or bronze medals for their online banking features. The banks are compared to a baseline developed by the firm, not with each other, so more than one bank can qualify for each medal in each category. Bank of America led the pack with four gold medals.

Smartphones and social media are still relatively new frontiers for consumer banking, and they pose new risks.

Offering payment technology that supports game developers who want to write one app and run it on many platforms.

Provides device identity authentication as well as user authentication.