How important is innovation to the business of banking today? The government appears to believe that financial innovations are at least partly to blame for the recent economic crisis, and to some degree this is true. Were it not for powerful secondary markets and instruments like mortgage-backed securities and CDOs, we may well have avoided the real estate bubble in the first place, leaving nothing to burst.

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Tech CU is providing its members with an enhanced list of methods to prevent being the victims of fraud through mobile banking.

TUKWILA, Wash. – BECU introduced a new person-to-person money transfer service known as Popmoney by CashEdge.

Arkansans can now make payments to the state government over their mobile phones.

Collections management is the forgotten technology in good times. Today the financial sector is faced with higher than normal delinquency rates, and those rates are still climbing.

Most Americans do not realize just how close the U.S. banking system came to collapsing in the fourth quarter of 2008, Kevin Blakely, chief risk officer at Huntington Bancshares Incorporated, said Monday during a speech at the National Collections & Credit Risk Conference in Miami.

JOPLIN, Mo. – Great Plains FCU yesterday said it has introduced a new online brand with a website designed by T8 Webware.

When The Fortunate Cup Coffee Cafe Inc. began accepting a new form of mobile payments last week, it also began to brew up more business for the bank that made it possible.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas-One sure way to get good marks on your mobile banking application is to rate it yourself, much as Firstmark CU here has done, awarding itself five out of five "stars" for its locator iPhone application at the Apple App Store.

KOKOMO, Ind.-Mortgage loan volume doubled last year at $175-million Solidarity Community FCU here, thanks to an online mortgage-application platform. Making the news even better: borrower credit was of "wonderful caliber."

SAN JOSE, Calif.-Even with an average user-rating of 2.5 out of 5 stars, Technology CU's iPhone application has given the CU something to brag about: the iPhone app is bolstering mobile banking usage.

CHARLESON, W.V.-Perhaps the most innovative CU iPhone app comes from $25-million WV United FCU in Charleston, W.V. Nearly 40 members are using the CU's mobile deposit capture application.

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.-Lakes Area CU first stepped foot on the Internet more than eight years ago. Since then, the CU's "brochure-ware" has evolved into a Flash-driven, mobile-optimized virtual branch that soon will feature person-to-person payments.

HOUSTON-Companies that use Facebook and its "fan" page module to market themselves to customers can increase sales, word-of-mouth marketing and customer loyalty significantly among a subset of their customers, according to new research from Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business.

GARDNER, Mass.-GFA FCU here has twice as many branches as it did five years ago, yet the $300-million CU has stayed with the same core processor for more than 20 years and has never employed an in-house IT specialist.

WHITE OAK, Penn.-Four small credit unions didn't know how good they had it with their original data processing vendors-until they converted systems, went through experiences that shook them to the core, then gratefully returned to their original vendors years later.

OLYMPIA, Wash.-Which should you be most grateful for in a core system-great cost or great functionality?

BROOKLYN, N.Y.-At all costs, avoid converting core systems if you have a good relationship with your current data processing vendor-even if the system itself needs some work, recommends Gene Brody, president at Bay Ridge FCU.

CHICAGO-Slick features such as Personal Financial Management (PFM) and mobile banking won't debut at Alliant Credit Union here until this summer, but the giant CU's well-equipped Internet channel already handles 65% of its monetary transactions-up from only 34% in 2005.

LANCASTER, Penn.-Mortgage-bot "does it all" when it comes to the loan origination process, but it may take a while for some credit unions to profit from the capabilities.