Profile of Olivia LaBarre

Blog Posts: 157

Wells Fargo's Secil Tabli Watson Looks to Improve the Corporate Banking Experience

4/23/2012
As the new head of Wells Fargo's wholesale Internet services group, Secil Tabli Watson brings lessons learned from her former position as head of the bank's consumer digital channels to Wells' commercial and corporate digital channels, where she will continue to focus on improving the customer experience.

Banks May Not Be Able to Resist 'Bring Your Own Device'

4/19/2012
User-friendly consumer devices such as Apple's iPad increasingly are infiltrating the enterprise and transforming workforce expectations. Despite security concerns, employee demands and the productivity gains powered by bring-your-own-device initiatives are forcing banks to embrace BYOD.

Supporting Bank Growth and Extending Access in Eastern Europe With Core Transformation

4/5/2012
Currently in the process of migrating to an Oracle Flexcube Universal Banking System, Romania-based Banca Transilvania is one institution that has hopped on the recent wave of core systems transformations at banks in Eastern Europe.

Social Media May Mitigate Negative Word-of-Mouth Criticism, Says CFI

4/4/2012
CFI Group's Call Center Satisfaction Index examines the increased use of social media to comment on the call center experience.

Amazon's Kindle Fire Heats Up Tablet Banking App Development

4/3/2012
Bank of America and Citi confirm that providing a unique experience on each mobile device, including Amazon's tablet, is a key part of a customer-centric mobile strategy.

Bank Loyalty Programs Need a Boost, Says Research

4/3/2012
The Accenture Global Consumer Survey reveals that although participation in bank loyalty programs is on the rise, those programs aren't as effective as they need to be.

Obopay Introduces Electronic Disbursement Solution

3/30/2012
The new offering allows a company to disburse funds from a corporate account directly into a payee's debit card account at another bank or load it onto a prepaid card.

USAA Tops Mobile Banking App UX Study

3/29/2012
The 2012 ath Mobile Banking Study reveals that mobile apps from USAA, Huntington Bank and BB&T rank the highest in terms of customer experience.

MasterCard Releases Real-Time Fraud Monitoring Tool

3/28/2012
The new tool, Expert Monitoring Fraud Scoring for Merchants, aims to help predict and fight fraudulent online transactions.

Cloud Computing Could Create 1.4 Million Banking Jobs by 2015

3/27/2012
A Microsoft-funded IDC study suggests that innovation enabled by cloud technology could boost jobs and revenues worldwide across several business verticals, including banking.

Obama Nominates Dartmouth President to Lead World Bank

3/23/2012
Jim Yong Kim may be the next to head the World Bank after its current president steps down in June.

AJB and First Data Team to Fight Retail Data Breaches

3/22/2012
AJB Software Design's payment processing application suite now integrates First Data's TransArmor data security solution to eliminate sensitive cardholder data from the retail environment.

Mobile Bill Pay Gaining Global Traction

3/22/2012
A report from Juniper Research says that about 80 percent of mobile banking users will pay their bills via mobile device by 2016.

Clairmail Hires Former Apple UX Exec

3/21/2012
Mitch Stein is the new director of innovation and design at mobile banking and payment solutions provider Clairmail.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Introduces Digital Trade and Supply Chain Portal

3/21/2012
The new digital platform aims to make trade and financial supply chain operations more efficient for large corporate and middle market companies.

BofA Talks Mobile Strategy

3/20/2012
A mobile executive at Bank of America says the bank will roll out more features for its mobile apps during the coming year.

How to Create a Superior Tablet Banking App

3/20/2012
As banks race to roll out mobile apps for iPads, Kindle Fires and other increasingly popular tablet devices, they need to do more than just port over their existing smartphone apps. Industry leaders reveal what goes into creating an engaging and rich tablet-specific experience.

Mobile Remote Deposit Capture: Putting a Price on Convenience

3/15/2012
Until mobile RDC becomes more ubiquitous, banks that have rolled out a full-fledged offering hold a competitive advantage. Meanwhile, banks searching for ways to monetize the mobile channel should look closely at the revenue potential of mobile remote deposit capture services -- while they still can.

Rethinking the Biggest Threat to Banks

3/14/2012
A panelist at the BAI Payments Connect conference says the most disruptive and threatening force to banks is not PayPal or third-party technology vendors, but a retailer.

Social Payments Could Become Bank-Centric

3/13/2012
A session at BAI Payments Connect 2012 explores the role banks can play in in social payments, a new area of payments that so far has not been particularly bank-centric.

Clairmail and VocaLink Partner for Mobile Payments

3/13/2012
The companies are working together to bring real-time mobile payment products to banks across the U.K.

BofA Announces New Mobile Banking Apps for Android Tablets

3/9/2012
The bank's new mobile releases include an app made specifically for Amazon's Kindle Fire and an app that works with Android 3.0+ tablets.

TD Bank Promotes Greg Braca to Head of Corporate and Specialty Banking

3/9/2012
The 25-year industry veteran is charged with driving the growth of TD Bank's corporate and specialty banking businesses.

Citi Releases Kindle Fire App

3/8/2012
The Citibank (Kindle Fire Edition) app is designed specifically for the tablet's size, operating system and resolution.

Authentify Launches Mobile and Online Authentication App

3/8/2012
The new 2CHK app provides a secure second channel to protect online and mobile financial transactions from cyber attacks.

Report Points to Security Holes in Customer-Facing Bank Apps

3/7/2012
The CRASH Report, a study of the structural quality of applications, reveals that banks have some work to do when it comes to making their customer-facing applications structurally sound and secure -- especially as they innovate in the mobile channel.

U.S. Bank Leverages iPad for In-Store Credit Card Applications

3/6/2012
The bank is piloting its new Instant Line Access iPad app with retailer Sport Chalet.

Brady Leaves Bank of America to Become KeyCorp CIO

3/5/2012
Amy Brady is moving on from a 25-year career at Bank of America to become KeyCorp's new CIO.

Fiserv Combines Popmoney and ZashPay to Make One Large P2P Payments Network

3/2/2012
The combined P2P payments services will merge under the Popmoney moniker and will serve 35 million consumers.

Keeping Up With Mobile Innovation

3/1/2012
Deloitte's recent Technology Trends report suggests that in order to succeed in the growing mobile arena, bank CIOs must take a design-led, problem-solving approach with a focus on user experience and strengthening customer relationships.

Sybase 365 Upgrades Mobile Commerce Platform

2/28/2012
The new version of the mobile commerce platform includes mobile money features for reaching the underbanked in addition to its mobile payments and mobile banking offerings.

Visa and Vodafone Partner to Roll Out Mobile Wallet

2/27/2012
The partnership will eventually bring NFC-based mobile payments to Vodafone customers in more than 30 countries.

Social Media and Smartphone Users Experiencing Increased Identity Fraud

2/23/2012
Javelin's 2012 Identity Fraud Report suggests consumers' risky behavior with social media and mobile technology may be contributing to an increase in identity fraud.

A New Customer Experience Leader: Q&A With USAA's Jeff Easley

2/21/2012
At a time when banks often are public enemy No. 1, how did USAA Federal Savings Bank manage to top Forrester Research's 2012 Customer Experience Index? Simply by putting the customer first, says Jeff Easley, USAA executive director of deposits product management.

Vista Proposal for Misys Threatens Misys-Temenos Merger Talks

2/21/2012
Vista Equity Partners has made a nonbonding proposal to acquire Misys, threatening a possible merger between Temenos and Misys that was announced earlier this month.

3 Steps to Building a World-Class Bank

2/21/2012
With global markets growing increasingly important to banks bottom lines, optimizing world-wide operations has become a business imperative. Here are three tips to help banks achieve world-class distinction

New KeyBank EVP Carpetto Brings New Payments Perspective

2/17/2012
Al Carpetto, KeyBank's new EVP, says he wants the bank to be viewed as a top-tier payments provider, including in areas such as treasury management, foreign exchange and institutional asset services.

Intuit Releases iPad Banking App

2/17/2012
Financial institutions can now offer the Intuit Tablet Banking for the iPad app to customers under their own brand names.

Q&A: Antonio Massanell, Managing Director of CaixaBank, on Succeeding Globally

2/15/2012
Massanell discusses how Barcelona-based CaixaBank is meeting the challenges of globalization by driving efficiencies, innovating and forming strategic partnerships.

Sybase and Telefonica Announce Mobile Wallet

2/14/2012
The virtual wallet solution, called mWallet, will launch in Latin America and Europe during the first half of 2012.

BBVA Compass Redesigns Online Banking Website

2/6/2012
The launch of a new online banking website signals the rollout of several technology upgrades at BBVA Compass.

Four Keys to Building an Analytical Workforce

2/3/2012
Experts offer their advice on how financial institutions can build a workforce equipped to compete in an increasingly data-driven industry.

U.S. Trust Introduces Online Wealth Management to Young Adults

2/3/2012
Bank of America's U.S. Trust has expanded its Financial Empowerment Program to include online resources that help educate young beneficiaries of wealth.

Big Data, Transparency Among Top Data Management Trends, According to the EDM Council

2/2/2012
The EDM Council's annual rundown of data-related trends in the financial industry indicates a growing understanding of effective data management.

Capital One Offers Credit Education Tool

2/2/2012
Capital One aims to help its student cardholders learn about credit through its new Journey Credit Tracker tool.

MasterCard Says U.S. EMV Adoption is Key to Next-Gen Payments

2/1/2012
MasterCard has developed a roadmap to rolling out EMV payment technology in the U.S., a move that the company says will spur innovations in digital payments.

Actiance Launches Socialite Engage

1/31/2012
The new platform allows financial institutions to share social media content with customers and still remain in compliance with government regulations.

U.S. Bancorp Announces Two Acquisitions

1/30/2012
The flurry of acquisition activity follows a favorable 2011 earnings report.

Google Could Benefit from Gupta's Resignation

1/27/2012
The resignation of Vikas Gupta, Google's head of consumer payments, may be exactly what the company needs.

Accenture Acquires Neo Metrics Analytics S.L.

1/25/2012
The acquisition of the consulting firm will expand the analytics capabilities Accenture can offer to its clients.

A PR Lesson From Deutsche Bank

1/20/2012
U.S. banks should take note of Deutsche Bank Belgium's clever new online and radio marketing campaign.

Defining Big Data

1/20/2012
What does big data actually mean, and how does it differ from data management? An industry expert breaks it down.

PayPal and AJB Bring Digital Wallet to Offline Retail Space

1/12/2012
PayPal has teamed up with payment solution provider AJB to expand its offline retail presence and give several merchants a low-cost way to deploy a digital wallet solution.

BBVA Migrates From Microsoft to Google Apps for Business

1/11/2012
BBVA's massive internal migration to the cloud-based app system from Google signifies not only an operational shift, but a shift in the industry's perception of cloud computing and the value it can bring to banks.

Wells Fargo's Mobile Banking App for Android Now Available On Amazon

1/10/2012
Wells Fargo furthers the reach of its mobile banking channel by making its mobile app available for download via the Amazon Appstore for Android.

U.S. Bank Enables Secure Online Child Support Payments in Nebraska

1/9/2012
Parents can now make online payments to the Nebraska Child Support Payment Center via SVP.

Gartner Predicts Rise of External Social and Cloud-Based Banking Services

1/6/2012
In its new report, Gartner gives advice to banks on how to stay relevant despite its prediction that external social web and cloud-based products will make up a quarter of consumer-driven banking services by 2015.

Citi Introduces Facebook Rewards App

1/3/2012
The new application allows Citi ThankYou Rewards members to pool and share their earned points via Facebook.

The 'Bring Your Own Device' Dilemma

12/23/2011
As more people rely on smartphones, bank IT departments will spend increasing resources to support employees' mobile devices of choice.

Banks Missing Opportunities to Address Customer Anxieties

12/21/2011
The CMO Council reports that banks aren't taking full advantage of digital media channels to assuage increasing customer anxiety caused by recent financial industry turmoil.

Tomorrow's Great Customer Experience Is Built on Today's Efficiency

12/19/2011
To fuel technology innovation and improve the bank customer experience, members of Bank Systems & Technology's Reader Advisory Board say they'll continue to focus on driving down operational costs in the year ahead.

Job Cuts or Hires -- What's Your IT Department's 2012 Workforce Outlook?

12/19/2011
A recent survey of CIOs indicates that IT hiring across the U.S. will generally increase in 2012. But after a year of hardships, I question whether bank IT departments will be among those hiring.

John Bottega Joins Bank of America as Chief Data Officer

12/14/2011
The former CDO for Citigroup and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York brings more than 25 years of experience in data management to Bank of America.

New Zions CIO Joe Reilly Walks a Tightrope

12/12/2011
Joe Reilly, recently appointed CIO of Zions Bancorp, will look to balance the needs of the holding company as a whole with the demands of the eight individual banks it serves.

ICS Risk Advisors Predicts Banks Will Face Another Tough Year

12/12/2011
The risk advisory firm says banks must implement internal risk management strategies in order to overcome increased regulations and slow economic progress in 2012.

Commonwealth Bank Aims to Give Customers A Voice

12/6/2011
The bank's new crowdsourcing initiative, IdeaBank, may -- or may not -- be exactly what retail banking customers have been asking for.

2012 FinTech Innovation Lab Now Accepting Entries

12/5/2011
The program, now in its second year, recognizes and helps develop new financial technology innovations.

Banks Fight Disintermediation With Personal Financial Management Tools

12/2/2011
Banks must ramp up their PFM offerings to help customers realize their financial goals and to avoid disintermediation.

MasterCard and mFoundry Give Bank Customers Access to Mobile Payments

12/1/2011
MasterCard has made an investment in and is also teaming up with mobile banking provider mFoundry, giving more consumers access to mobile payments and helping banks bring their own digital wallet solutions to market.

Citibank Searches for the Ultimate Customer Experience

11/30/2011
Tracey Weber, Citibank's head of Internet and mobile banking for North America consumer banking, says the look and feel of Citi's new online banking website are just as important as its underlying functionality.

Fundtech and BankServ Complete Merger

11/30/2011
SasS banking provider BankServ's majority shareholder, GTCR, has purchased payments software company Fundtech for $23.33 per share to create a company focused on several aspects of transaction banking.

U.S. Bank Upgrades Wholesale Lockbox Platform

11/29/2011
The image-based solution is helping the bank's business and government customers move toward electronic payment processing.

Inside the Citibank.com Redesign

11/25/2011
Citibank recently reintroduced its online banking website with a brand-new look, feel and set of functionalities. Here's a closer look at the new citibank.com.

Chase and British Airways Release EMV Visa Card

11/23/2011
The companies are offering a co-branded British Airways Visa card that features EMV chip-with-signature technology.

Former FIS Executive Joins Fiserv Card Services Division

11/22/2011
Bruce Hopkins has been named general manager of processing solutions for Fiserv's card services division.

Yodlee and Open Solutions Bring PFM to Credit Unions and Community Banks

11/17/2011
The two companies have partnered to integrate Yodlee personal finance management tools with the Open Solutions DNAweb online banking platform.

Visa Opens Developer Center, Offers Access to Digital Wallet

11/16/2011
Visa aims to help simplify and speed up the deployment of its payment innovations such as its forthcoming V.me digital wallet by giving developers access to programming and development tools via a new website.

Banks Still Building Business Case for Mobile Banking

11/15/2011
A recent Forrester report reveals that banks still have high expectations of the mobile channel despite admitting to a somewhat hasty start with it.

Report Says JPMorgan Chase Offers Best Mobile Banking Solution

11/14/2011
Javelin's 2011 Mobile Banking Financial Institution Scorecard also says that since the tablet will be soon be a game-changer, banks must ramp up their tablet-specific offerings.

Ally Bank Surveys Customer on Bank Fees

11/11/2011
The recent survey asked customers what they consider the least acceptable bank fees, whether they know what they're currently paying in fees and what they really want out of their banks.

ABIL Could be the iPad of ATMs

11/9/2011
The sleekly designed ABIL ATM from Madrid, Spain-based BBVA, recently on display at MoMA in New York, is beginning to change the way customers experience ATMs.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch to Offer EMV Cards to U.S. Customers

11/8/2011
Beginning in the first quarter of 2012, the bank will offer chip-and-PIN credit cards to U.S. corporate customers who travel abroad.

Wausau Boosts Payments, Receivables and Treasury Management Offerings

11/7/2011

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Adds New Online Corporate Banking Apps

11/7/2011
The bank introduced three new applications to boost its global treasury management and online banking platform, CashPro Online.

SaveUp Flips Traditional Banking Rewards Model

11/3/2011
The new savings rewards program is partnering with financial institutions such as Bank of the West to offer consumers incentives for reducing debt and increasing assets.

Moving Past Customer Discontent Over Debit Card Fees

11/2/2011
Amid recent announcements of debit fee retractions from major banks, Javelin's Beth Robertson discusses why Bank of America has taken the brunt of the public scorn for its fee announcements and how financial institutions can better offset losses while maintaining customer relations.

The State of EMV

11/1/2011
Following Visa's push for the adoption of EMV in the U.S., bankers are debating whether the standard will emerge from the mix of innovations in the payment space as the next widely adopted domestic payment solution.

Chase Remains Top SBA Lender in U.S.

10/28/2011
The bank loaned more than $12.6 billion to about 300,000 small businesses during the first three quarters of 2011.

Report Says Banks' Online Fraud Mitigation Strategies Matter to Customers

10/27/2011
A new report from the Aite Group suggests that fraud-prevention capability is increasingly becoming a competitive differentiator for financial institutions.

Experts Debate the Security of EMV

10/27/2011
While many in the financial industry acknowledge that the EMV standard is not 100-percent secure, some say it may be the best option available for securing POS payments.

Virginia Rometty to Become IBM President and CEO

10/26/2011
The IBM board of directors has elected Virginia Rometty to replace Samuel Palmisano as CEO and president of IBM, effective Jan. 1, 2012.

Earnix Offers Its Pricing Solution in the Cloud

10/25/2011
Banks can now use the pricing optimization solution Earnix Optimizer without making major changes to IT infrastructure.

BofA Offers Intuit Payroll Solution to Small Business Customers

10/24/2011
Bank of America adds to its efforts to help small business customers by giving them access to the Intuit Full Service Payroll solution.

Chase Expands Credit Card Travel Rewards

10/20/2011
MileagePlus Holdings joins Chase's Ultimate Rewards program to offer cardholders another option to transfer points for travel.

U.S. Bank Encourages Social Networking Among Small Businesses Via Facebook

10/19/2011
The bank recently launched the "Look Up With US" Facebook challenge to give small businesses a chance to network with each other and to win $5,000.

Q&A: Security Pros Identify Key Themes at the NICE Actimize Forum

10/17/2011
Shawn Swartout, VP and security director at Spokane, Wash.-based Sterling Savings Bank and Ben Knieff, director of product marketing and enterprise fraud prevention expert at NICE Actimize say that managing customer relationships is key to a successful security strategy.

Umpqua Bank Implements Novantas PriceTek

10/14/2011
The solution will support the bank in each phase of pricing process through an advanced analytics platform.

Community Banks Benefit From Big Banks' New Fees

10/14/2011
Community banks are finding opportunities to attract new business in the wake of customer frustration over new fees recently announced by large banks.

Mobey Forum Makes A Case for NFC Payments

10/12/2011
The industry association has developed a white paper outlining what needs to happen to make NFC payments a global reality.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch Teams With TerraPass to Provide Carbon Offsets in California

10/11/2011
The multimillion agreement will allow the bank to create the first multisector mandatory emissions trading program in the U.S.