Bank technology

Much like a diner waitress who can't keep up with her tables, the need to keep up with new technologies that might make work proceed more smoothly or quickly is a job requirement that many business leaders find similarly overwhelming.

Amid the debate over whether or not banks should mine social media data for their credit-risk analyses, some financial services providers have quietly begun doing so.

Banks like Citigroup and Capital One are expanding their use of innovation labs that bring in clients and outside experts to match R&D to customer demands.

When two bank technology Goliaths go to battle over patents, smaller vendors might get hurt.

Familiar merger concepts are blowing up at a time when branch networks are being relegated to more of a supportive role.

Five Questions with John MacIlwaine, Head of IT, Green Dot.

Intuit's Mint.com, which launched an iPad app in October, released a version for Android tablets Wednesday.

As banks struggle with social media, SmartyPig LLC is set to offer its tried-and-true approach to any bank that wants it.

Analysts expect the scarcity and rising prices of hard drives for retail and corporate markets will last into 2013, due to a slow recovery from severe flooding last fall in Thailand.

Bank marketers are generally content with how their firms approach social media. The trick now is using digital channels to synthesize what consumers want before they even know they want it.

Fundamentally, banks connect those with money to those who need it. By limiting access to the systems that handle the transactions, banks have been able to charge big fees. But the walls are breaking down now.

In some banks, IT is an order taker. In these banks, the CEO realizes the importance of technology to the company's success and the CIO is a valued member of the executive suite.

Digital banking, compliance, data storage mandates, and new architectures are all on the radar for the many small banks undertaking long-overdue core overhauls. The projects are expensive, but necessary.

If the CEO of a company is unaware or uninterested in technology, it's incumbent upon the CIO to change that, by building relationships with the C suite, says John Beran, former CIO of Comerica. "A CIO has to become a valued partner to the businesses."

As the pace of upgrades accelerates, these are among the vendors who have been winning business.

Surprisingly for a community bank, City Bank, a $1.9 billion institution in Lubbock, Tex., offers a few wrinkles in its recently updated mobile banking app that we haven't seen elsewhere.

Citigroup announced an upgrade to its online banking application for Apple's iPad that includes what Citi says is the first such robust iPad credit card account-analysis application.

The bank's new IT testing includes a system called progressive automation, in which projects are tested much earlier in the development cycle-a move that should improve speed to market and error diagnosis.

By joining a new anti-phishing coalition, Bank of America is maintaining a leadership position it's held for several years in the battle against cyberthieves. But this is one small step and the battle is by no means over.

MasterCard is pushing merchants to upgrade their checkout systems to handle credit and debit cards that store information inside an embedded chip.