Data and information management

Discover says it will help consumers seeking to establish or rebuild a credit score by expanding the availability of its Discover It Secured Credit Card, which offers the cash-back rewards and security measures of its mainstream cards.

A new class of fintech startups is using loan applicants' social networks to determine creditworthiness as the banking industry debates the merits of alternate underwriting methods.

Reeling from the loss of the Costco account and other setbacks in 2015, American Express is looking to the future the same way any investor might — banking on the diversification of its portfolio to slowly climb back.

Subtly altered versions of popular apps are appearing more often on smartphones. These rogue apps, often available for free, can steal mobile banking passwords or redirect text messages containing passcodes.

For years, the financial services industry has relied on tactics such as education campaigns, sales pitches and financial penalties to get merchants to upgrade their technology. Ironically, the bad security that led to Target's 2013 data breach may have been the strongest way to deliver this message.

Fiserv in Brookfield, Wis., has agreed to buy the community financial services business of ACI Worldwide for $200 million in cash.

More companies are using installment payments to lure consumers away from credit cards, and MasterCard is testing a model that could lure them back.

It may seem odd for a vendor of payment acceptance hardware to discredit EMV security, which is commonly seen as a catalyst for hardware sales, but that's exactly what MagTek is doing.

More than 100 online authentication methods have earned Fast Identity Online Alliance certification as the organization's goal of eliminating static passwords gains momentum.

Consumers say they consider mobile banking unsafe even as they increasingly use it, assuming they can do nothing to protect themselves from the escalating threats. Banks can't afford to be so fatalistic.

Biometrics are seen as the future of authentication, but some customers hesitate to ditch old ways. Picking the most practical pain points — like authenticating over the phone — is banks' best bet to win converts, observers say.

Acquirers are starting to look more closely at a seller’s commitment to cybersecurity to avoid reputational and operational risk.

Banks' core systems are like spaghetti — a mess of noodles. They need to find ways to be more structured,, says Hanspeter Wolf, CEO of onboarding software vendor Appway.

Roughly 28% of Swift's correspondent bank users have signed up for the cooperative's KYC Registry, defying early skepticism about financial institutions' willingness to share information.

Discover has taken a deeper step into the airline miles rewards card competition, shifting the tone of its TV advertising with its first commercial for the It Miles card it introduced last year.

Wells Fargo and American Express have launched their third credit card product together.

Many emerging innovators want to incorporate digital advances into the incumbent financial services sphere, not necessarily leapfrog banks.

There is a lingering fear that enabling real-time transfers between consumer bank accounts will open a window for fraud that cannot be closed. But as the demand for real-time payments grows, two large bank-led consortia hope to address the banking industry's fraud concerns by developing an interoperable identity shield.

FuturePay hopes its alternative credit model can shake up in-store payments as the company plots to go beyond its e-commerce roots.

Authentication methods meant to keep cybercriminals from taking over accounts can also lock out legitimate users. This old dilemma is growing more vexing as cybercriminals get better at impersonating customers and as regulators increasingly push multifactor authentication.