Bank technology

New personal financial management software companies that demonstrated their wares at Finovate last week are offering financial advice to the middle class and women.

Customer credit card data was not endangered during last week's security breach of a small portion of websites hosted by GoDaddy.com Inc., a company executive says.

Telecommunication network providers may seem like banks' competition in the mobile payments arms race, but a look at initiatives around the world shows that collaboration between the two groups is the wisest course.

Think Finance has hired William A. Kontgis as chief information officer to help develop products for the unbanked.

About 78% of consumers surveyed are comfortable with their banks using security cameras to improve customer service. Union Savings Bank in Danbury, Conn. is testing this concept.

Updates to the 20-year-old Americans With Disabilities Act means, for banks that need to bring their ATMs in line with compliance, there is a heavy chore ahead.

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Bill Beckmann took on a job that has become among the most daunting among executive jobs in the mortgage industry: President and chief executive of Merscorp Inc.

New regulations reducing debit card interchange fees are causing some banks to charge customers more for using debit cards, which could drive consumers to increase their use of credit cards, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

The CEOs of Fundtech and BankServ, authors of a controversial deal, outline their plans to become a payments processor for businesses that operate around the world.

The GoDaddy.com website makes no mention of the data breach that hit the Web hosting provider, but a picture is coming together on how 445 of its hosting merchant accounts were affected.

Are banks returning in earnest to the principles of services-oriented architecture? Several participants at this week's Sibos conference in Toronto think so.

The Financial Services Roundtable board said on Friday that Paul Smocer has been named president of its technology policy division, BITS.

When looking for fraud, merchants and card issuers typically see only their half of a customer interaction, and getting useful data can be like listening to one half of a phone call. A London payment processor seeks to change this by giving both players the full conversation.

Banks are starting to notice that their online banking and mobile sites are not as good as customers expect. Many banks, especially the largest ones, are making major investments to change this, Fiserv says.

The Mortgage Bankers Association will resume running the day-to-day operations of its MISMO subsidiary on Dec. 1, taking the task back from Merscorp. Discussions on the move intensified amid MERS' regulatory scrutiny.

Picking up where early-Internet entrepreneurs left off a decade ago, Jingit is working with U.S. Bancorp to revitalize the business model of compensating consumers for watching ads online.

Credit card company Discover Financial Services has been a frequent buyer in the past year as it tries to expand beyond its traditional card lending and network roots. But now it is developing new businesses internally, including a new online checking account it plans to launch at the end of 2012.

Just as Discover is discontinuing single-use account numbers, MasterCard is making them a central feature of a small-business offering.

Green Acres this ain't. But welcome to FarmVille, bankers. Capital One announced on Tuesday a partnership with virtual game distributor Zynga, which will let Capital One plant its brand in three popular online games — FarmVille, CityVille and The Pioneer Trail.