Mobile banking

Apple realizes that retailers are uniquely well-positioned to encourage mobile payments adoption. That's why the company's decision to start accepting retailer loyalty cards on Apple Pay before launching a loyalty program of its own makes good sense.

Silicon Valley firms like Apple and Lending Club are happy to partner with banks — so long as they get to be the face of customer interactions. But banks may not easily give up that ground.

It's hard to get consumers and merchants to change their behaviors. But eventually the convenience and well-crafted incentives of mobile payments will prompt people to give up the plastic habit.

The 28-year-old Young Americans Bank was founded to teach kids to save, but now the bank is focused on showing its customers how to spend wisely. CEO Richard Martinez says tots still prefer paper statements, while tweens are getting their allowance via bill pay.

While other banks build fancy modern skyscrapers or look to shrink the size of their branches, Dollar Bank in Pittsburgh has poured its resources into restoring a 144-year-old building downtown. The bank says the building's fame gives it a marketing edge.

San Diego-based Mitek, a firm that specializes in capturing mobile data for customer acquisition, has acquired Dutch identity verification company IDchecker.

Each time Elavon, a payments-processing unit of U.S. Bancorp, launches a new product, its R&D lab steals a page from rock 'n' roll history to mark the occasion.

Global financial inclusion efforts have made big strides, but documentation requirements continue to hinder access to financial services, and women and the poor remain disproportionately underserved, according to the World Bank's annual study.

Todd Barnhart, head of retail banking at PNC Financial Services Group, discusses the conversion of branches to emphasize digital banking and why it's good to teach consumers to better manage their own accounts, even at the expense of fee revenue in the short term.

Banks' customer-satisfaction ratings are at a 10-year high, according to a new study by J.D. Power. The research firm identified the top-rated banks in each region, and found that the postmillennial generation has a thing for the megabanks.

Supporting Apple Pay cuts into banks' profits. But it's worth it to stay relevant in today's fast-moving mobile payments business.

For all their talk, banks are still sorely lacking when it comes to creating a great user experience in their digital channels, as this unhappy customer can attest.

The ubiquitous coffee chain is making new inroads with its mobile payments app, and its success underscores how nonbanks can outdo banks at their own game and should be watched closely by banking industry participants.

Customers are dodging deposit fees by hanging onto their extra cash and using apps to more frequently check their balances, denying banks crucial noninterest income.

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.

The automated-teller-machine maker announced new software that it estimates can save up to 40% annually on ATM costs by reducing the agony of updating each box individually. The product targets the many banks that still need to upgrade their ATM fleets to Windows 7.

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.