The Coming Econgularity: the Real Challenge to Civil Liberties
Econgularity – a shorthand for economic singularity — is an ugly word I created to describe an unfortunately approaching moment in time when our current technological snooping prowess, the ease of Big...
View ArticleAd from Kotak Mahindra Bank Is Best of 2013
The suspense is over. This morning we showed you 11 of the best bank ads from 2013, and now we’re unveiling the No. 1 ad of the year: Kotak Mahindra Junior Bank Account. The ad features a charming...
View ArticleSquare Is Partying Like It’s 1999
It’s party season in Silicon Valley. The San Francisco-based payments startup Square is flying high and holding parties and events around the country that recall the heady days of the dot-com boom of...
View ArticleLifeLock Wastes No Time Squashing Lemon Wallet Brand
LifeLock is in a hurry to get its name on Lemon Wallet – and Lemon’s name off its new property. An email went out today to Lemon Wallet users that the service is now called LifeLock Wallet and will be...
View ArticleAmerican Express Platinum Cardholders Lose Airport Lounge Access, and They...
American Express Business Platinum cardholders will lose a cherished privilege in late March: access to American Airlines Admiral Club and US Airways Club lounges. Delta Sky Club and Priority Pass...
View ArticleVIDEO: Instant Mobile Shopping with US Bank
US Bank continues to make waves in the commercial space. In October it announced a mobile e-commerce platform partnership with Monitise, and the video below appears to give a glimpse of the fulfillment...
View ArticleSimple Launches Realtime P2P Functionality — on PayPal’s Rails?
Simple launched realtime person-to-person (P2P) payments today, the company announced in a blogpost. The functionality currently only works online, but will be rolled out to the company’s iOS and...
View ArticleThe 2013 GonzoBanker Awards
Time for us to toast the mighty, recognize the innovators, skewer those who have rambled off the path of righteousness, and poke a little fun at all of the above.
View ArticlePut in Perspective, the Target Credit Card Breach Could Have Been Worse
Target sure is living up to its name. The news yesterday that the megastore’s point-of-sale systems had been compromised and as many as 40 million cards exposed to possible fraud came at a bad time for...
View ArticleGame Devices Are Potential Payment Vehicles, Too
With the Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox, you need to pay to play. So why are these devices not taken seriously in the payments world? Mobile payments seem to have stalled — just witness the...
View ArticleAmex Shows the Dark Side of Security Hype, Just in Time for Christmas
The recent Target credit card scandal has colored last-minute Christmas shopping with fear — fear of security breaches and lackluster controls and privacy. No doubt, American Express should add to that...
View ArticleHow Plink and Wisely Are Angling for Rewards Revenue
Mobile payments are the rage — but 90% of commerce still takes place offline. Two online services powering offline commerce are rewards company Plink and Wisely, a new Yelp-like service built on actual...
View ArticleWhich FIs Did Best in 2013? Check Their Net Income per Employee
There are many ways to measure bank efficiency, but in 2013 net income per employee was arguably the best indicator of all for stock performance among large financial institutions. Net income per...
View ArticleVIDEO: Gift Card Exchanges, the Last Refuge of the Shopping Hopeless
Stuck with an unwanted or useless gift card this holiday season? All is not lost. Gift card exchanges can help recover some value from that piece of plastic either by buying it outright or connecting...
View ArticleTop 5 Fintech Posts of 2013
A lot has happened in the banking and financial services world this year. From the debates over a potential digital wallet revolution to the proliferation of mobile devices and big data – there was a...
View ArticleBitcoin Hype in 2013 Fell Far Short of Interest in ‘Real’ Banking Services
To say that 2013 was the Year of the Bitcoin Hype is nothing short of understatement. To say that bitcoins hit mainstream press is to say Barack Obama has a chance to become president of the United...
View ArticleBank Innovation’s Top 10 Posts of 2013
Ah, 2013! Was it really, as some have said, a “lost year” for tech? Hardly. Throughout the year, we read stories that wowed us (“Google Enables the Sending of Money Using Gmail”), as well as those that...
View ArticleMassive Growth for Bank Innovation in 2013
Bank Innovation, the leading information resource on customer experience in banking, hosted more than 240,000 visitors in 2013, a nearly 180% year-over-year increase. The increase is reflective not...
View ArticleAlly, Union and Capital One Post Large Deposit Gains
Ally Bank and Union Bank posted the largest gains in deposit dollars of the Top 20 Banks in the third quarter of 2013 compared to the previous quarter, while Capital One and Union Bank posted the...
View ArticleSquare Cash Doesn’t Appear to Have Much Momentum
Square introduced its Square Cash peer-to-peer payments application to great fanfare last October. The app does not appear to be picking up momentum since, however, even when compared only to other...
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