Bank technology

Lack of contactless payment technology in the iPhone 4S expected to depress prospects for the NFC-enabled phone market and therefore the overall prospects for mobile payments this year.

Popular new revenue strategies that tie mobile banking, online banking and card programs to special online or mobile offers present a cross-channel integration and data management challenge. That requires lots of investments in middleware that ties payments to CRM systems to ensure the programs remain accessible, accurate, fast and functional.

State Street Corp. said Tuesday that it had acquired Complementa Investment-Controlling AG, an analytics firm based in St. Gallen, Switzerland.

Bank of America is not saying why some customers trying to access the bank's homepage or their personal accounts are experiencing slowness or access issues, but the bank said it is not a result of hacking or malware.

Bank risk managers are expecting the worst unless the economy improves.

With growing country risk, a single European payment system becomes less appealing.

Fundtech's withdrawal and the lack of a white knight force payments software company S1 to merge with a rival.

Apriva has launched a product designed to provide secure voice, email and data communications for smartphone apps, such as mobile banking and mobile payment programs.

BofI Holding Inc. in San Diego announced Monday that it has changed the name of its federally chartered savings bank from Bank of Internet USA to BofI Federal Bank.

Most banks design mobile sites as shrunken versions of online banking. Citigroup Inc.'s new website instead takes the lessons of mobile and blows them up for a bigger screen.

The payment processor Planet Payment Inc. is delaying the release of its financial results for the first half of 2011 as it considers a change in the way it will report future revenue.

A wider availability of smartphones combined with more contactless acceptance at merchant locations should generate some $71 billion in near field communication mobile payments worldwide by 2015, research suggests.

IMGCAP(1)]

In retail banking, we look for trends: the branch of the future; the winning mobile banking platform; prepaid cards. It's harmless fun.

Hypercom USA announced Friday that it has changed its corporate name to Equinox Payments LLC.

Commercial banks with large corporate clients have no room for error in guarding against attacks. Any crack in a bank's security can make it look like it has no security at all.

An open standards-driven collaboration with SWIFT and SAP is helping the bank increase automation in corporate payments processing. Other elements of treasury management will follow.

Wells Fargo & Co. said Friday that it has struck a deal to provide trade-finance services to Indian Bank in Chennai, India.

Is Bank of America charging for debit cards because it is shortsighted or because it is too bloated to compete against smaller institutions for consumer accounts?

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has hired former Sears Financial Services executive Susan Ehrlich as its senior vice president of next generation payments.