Google will provide deposit insurance backing for funds stored with its wallet service, positioning the technology giant along with stored-value providers that use the FDIC's "pass-through" coverage. Here's why that matters.

Google Wallet is making a significant change in how it handles funds, in the latest of a series of moves that gives Google a stronger footing against Apple Pay's rising tide.

As branch transactions continue to decline, banks are increasingly requiring expertise in an area they paid less attention to in the past: digital design. BBVA and Capital One's recent purchases of user-experience and design firms underscore the increasingly important trend.

BBVA has acquired San Francisco user-experience firm Spring Studio, in a bid to improve the look and feel of its digital banking services.

The world needs a financial system that moves money with real-time transparency while upholding the highest level of security and privacy. Digital currency and mobile money services can help get us there.

When Apple releases its smartwatch next week, there will be apps available from at least five banks — and four of them are community banks. Bankers see the apps as a way to get in early on a new platform, make banking more convenient and drive digital engagement.

Mobile wallet developers can find a suitable business partner in prepaid-card providers, who have already been down the path that mobile has just started.

Merchants are making a new argument in their years-long battle with banks over swipe fees, saying Apple Pay has locked them out of additional routing options mandated by Dodd-Frank.

Industry groups are crying foul over how a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposal to regulate prepaid cards would affect overdraft services and treat virtual currencies.

Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) has joined the ranks of cryptocurrency enthusiasts.

The new digital currency entrepreneurs are stripping the bitcoins from Bitcoin, building new iterations of the underlying blockchain technology without clinging to any digital currency token.

By poaching Ruth Porat from Morgan Stanley, it's clear Google wants to forge closer relationships with banks. That's because banks hold the key to helping Google expand its Google Wallet mobile-payments product.

When customers have a problem on mobile or online banking and (gasp) need to turn to a real person, Bank of America's Steve Beasty wants them to have a seamless — and friendly — experience.

Former senior JPMorgan Chase & Co. executive Blythe Masters is heading a cryptocurrency startup that aims to overhaul the way traded assets are settled and recorded.

Apple Pay and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have a lot of appeal for banks looking to stay at the cutting edge of digital payments. But security and compliance risks are part and parcel of these innovations.

Apple Pay and cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have a lot of appeal for banks looking to stay at the cutting edge of digital payments. But security and compliance risks are part and parcel of these innovations.

Community banks have long said they are the kings of customer service. But a new study shows technology may be the great equalizer for megabanks, as the quality of their mobile apps and online bank sites is prompting customers to say big banks' customer service has improved.

Francisco Gonzalez, who has been warning for almost a decade of the technological transformation set to engulf the financial industry, said at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona March 4 that his bank would define itself as a software company.

California assemblyman Matt Dababneh, D-Encino, has proposed AB 1326, a bill that provides guidelines for any individual or business that wants to start using virtual currency.

BBVA has spent about $3.6 billion on technology since 2011 to expand online and mobile-banking services and prepare for what its chairman Francisco Gonzalez has described as an existential threat from firms like Google, Facebook and Amazon.