Bank technology

Bank technology provider Fiserv has positioned itself for a wave of growth in electronic payments. It expects its recently purchased CashEdge and related business lines to balloon in the coming years.

While saving money and paying debts can be its own reward, Bank of the West is taking the added step of offering potential prizes to consumers who reduce outstanding credit or boost savings.

Banks and financial institutions have been sitting on vast amounts of customer transaction data for several decades now. The hardware and software technologies to make sense of this vast storehouse of data have been available for at least a decade now. Meanwhile the appetite for insightful data to help marketers target customers online has grown enormously, as has users' disdain for untargeted advertising.

Citing steady international growth and earnings from increased debit network fees, First Data delivered a 3.8% increase in third-quarter consolidated revenue.

Jack Henry & Associates said its first-quarter net income for its fiscal year 2012 rose 15% to $36.5 million from a year earlier, lifted by growth in support and service revenue.

Both VeriFone and Ingenico are enhancing their point of sale terminals to accommodate future growth in near-field communication and global chip and PIN payment security standards, a move that should move alternative payment forms forward.

Fiserv said Tuesday its third-quarter revenue rose 3% to $1.06 billion from a year earlier due to revenue growth in its payments segment. Its net income fell 5% to $127 million from a year earlier.

The prepaid card marketer NetSpend is teaming up with PayPal in a deal that has so far been the subject of little fanfare by either company.

Bank of America is running television ads depicting a son telling the story of how family loyalty to the bank is based on his parents approaching their local B of A branch manager some 71 years ago to finance selling hot dogs from their stand on a local corner. The piece notes that the parents offered no collateral but gained the confidence of the local manager of their potential success. This story is consistent with the history of the bank going back to its founder, A.P. Giannini who consistently worked to meet the needs of small businesses in developing areas and during difficult times.

VeriFone is continuing its push into the retail mobile-payment market by acquiring Global Bay Mobile Technologies, a private mobile retail software provider, the payment-terminal maker announced Tuesday.

Bank of America's decision to drop its controversial debit-card fee may have come too late to retain some accounts, as many big-bank customers have begun defecting to smaller banks in protest over various fees, according to FIS.

A survey of 3,000 consumers around the world found a high percentage would like to use banking and financial apps on a tablet computer. But the study also revealed low interest in mobile payments.

Months after a phishing attack struck RSA Security's passcode-generating tokens and thus exposed the nation's leading banks to security threats this spring, more than a third of top banks are standing by RSA's product.

The FinTech 100 awards were handed out at this year's BAI retail delivery conference during one of the most contentious times for banking in decades. Staffers from BTN and our sister site PaymentsSource were on hand to capture the sights and sounds of the event at Chicago's McCormick Place in October.

A large group of U.S. consumers think a familiar looking bank siteassures online banking security.

For the IT staff of two at the community bank Royal Bank America, an email-based trouble ticket system wasn't cutting it.

National Grand Bank of Marblehead wanted to build stronger ties with the local community through its website. The trouble was, all changes required rewriting HTML code.

Scotiabank has found that using software to automatically extract data saves time and reduces errors, such as sales representatives forgetting to record their contracts.

John Petrey, CIO of First Niagara, is handling a wave of Northeast and New England bank mergers. A consistent rip-and-replace strategy helps keep the IT conversions smooth and minimizes disruption.

There are banks and executives within them who believe everything they do is a hyper-important state secret that must be closely guarded at all times. Then there are leaders and banks like John Petrey at First Niagara, who are willing to share knowledge, ideas and approaches to common challenges with their peers in the industry.