Mobile banking

Nonbanks now set the digital banking experience bar, but in less than a decade large banks will have swallowed them up and will have become digital financial superstores.

PNC Financial Services Group has been named the official bank of the University of Kentucky, its 50th such partnership with a college or university.

Throw Cathy Bessant of Bank of America a question about a hot tech topic, and she's got answers. Blockchain? She loves it but is still waiting for its use case. Patents? The law is making us be aggressive. Swift? A call to action. And that's just the start.

Without the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau setting specific debt collection guidelines — including what technology agencies can use — the industry will continue a practice that harms consumers: lawsuits.

Associated Banc-Corp in Green Bay, Wis., has promoted Brent R. Tischler to the newly created position of director of retail banking.

The bank, which operates in 12 states, is bringing customers in the door even as it cuts its retail square footage by half. The lure? The offer of a financial "checkup" that tens of thousands of people have accepted.

The engineers on Arjun Sirrah's team are on a first-name basis with customer service staff. Those relationships help Darien Rowayton Bank's student lending arm competes with fintech companies.

As its digital consumer executive, Carrie Sumlin is tasked with making sure Ally Bank offers its customers top-notch digital services since it doesn't have any branches.

By allowing commercial clients to authenticate via an eye scan, Wells Fargo is making a burdensome task simple. Secil Watson, head of wholesale Internet solutions, is pushing the bank to make digital banking easier for commercial clients.

Instant Apps could give banks a better option for transitioning customers from a quick and easy account opening to a more robust banking experience.

Well before the mobile payments explosion, incumbents were already focused on how to respond to nonbanks "piggybacking" on banks' payments infrastructure. As the consultant behind a 1994 banking industry report on the threat put it, "there is no time for delay."

Consumers, especially millennials, increasingly prefer to do everything on their mobile devices, including signing up for services. But as banks start to open accounts for people whom their employees have never met, there are plenty of questions about whether they can tell real customers and crooks apart.

Valley National Bank in Wayne, N.J., has appointed former PNC executive Robert Bardusch to be its chief information officer.

When it comes to earning consumer loyalty with user-friendly mobile banking tools, everyday interactions can matter more than momentous ones.

The San Francisco bank isn't interested in making splashy investments in technology. At an investor day event Tuesday, Wells executives said they would focus on taking incremental steps to reduce costs and improve customer experiences.

Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, Calif., has launched a program that lets new customers sign up for accounts using electronic signatures.

Many see the future of financial services being powered by partnerships between banks and fintechs, but both sides need to first make sure they understand themselves and what they want.

Banks have stumbled in their forays with wearable technology. Now the leading maker of personal fitness trackers plans to add contactless payment capabilities to the devices.

Banks are trying to upgrade tech offerings, from mobile banking to bill pay. But that's easier said than done, in part because the biggest core processors use their dominant market share to restrict access to banks' networks. They do this, in part, because they offer their own competing tech products.

Technology leader BBVA Compass has been ahead of the pack in real-time payments, neobanking and fintech investing. Manolo Sanchez shares his vision for next steps: the bank's developing API marketplace and "Uberized" digital banking.