Social media

The ad tech industry is so fraught with misleading and deceptive data that it's difficult for marketers to make smart advertising choices. Even the most reputable of firms spew unreliable data.

Banks should experiment with Snapchat and learn to deliver content in small doses even if the platform proves to be a bad fit for the industry in the long run.

Though banks are bigger in peer-to-peer payments overall, Venmo is better at functionality and branding and millennials love it. Now banks are launching Zelle with high hopes and the advantage of real-time speed. Can they catch up? Should they even bother?

Payments are inevitably merging with social media, but the mix comes with a clear and very public risk if not handled correctly.

Transaction records reveal a lot about consumers that can go a long way toward building marketing campaigns that keeps them coming back.

Gen Z is coming fast on the heels of millennials. For e-commerce, payments and financial services, they have an even shorter attention span.

Ant Financial’s attempt to add a social-network function to China’s biggest payments platform has backfired.

Consumers aren't just sharing the charming personal moments of their lives on social media — they're producing data that Israeli startup Feelter contends can revolutionize online shopping.

An Israeli startup in the emerging B2B2C space that allows consumers to make payments through major messaging apps has completed a $6 million round of funding backed by Banco Santander, Mastercard and other investors.

The rules can be tricky, but social data can add lots of detail that can help prove identity and reduce fraud.

MemoryBank, a new digital-only bank unit of Republic Bank & Trust, aims to serve the sweet spot of customers who are digitally savvy but also have money.

At this week's Money2020 conference, payment execs like PayPal's Bill Ready say consumers will make purchases in a broad context of shopping, and if merchants aren’t poised to meet their audiences there, they will get left behind, Ready said.

Combining biometrics with device ID, social data, behavior patterns and other factors builds a strong foundation for artificial intelligence to conduct identity proofing and transaction authorization.

Randolph Bancorp raised $57 million in a mutual-to-stock conversion and is using the proceeds to fund acquisitions — it closed its first-ever deal in July — and dramatically improve its digital capabilities.

Banks must use analytics — rather than customer surveys — to determine what does and what does not inspire prospects to become customers.

Despite the hurdles facing technology giants in offering payments services, they remain keenly interested in the sector and more traditional service providers should stay on alert.

Social media may be the soup de jour of bank marketing, but its value as a business acquisition tool may be greatly exaggerated unless banks fine-tune their strategies.

Citizens Bank's largely millennial student loan applicants were not responding to email and phone communications. So it created a messaging service that mimics the social media they know and love.

Digital tools improve a bank's traditional sales process, but relationship-based banking is still a huge factor in winning over millennial customers.

Even though innovative underwriting criteria can help more people get credit, the risks and potential harms of mining social media data to make loan decisions might just be too great.