The new digital assistant is launching inside the Bank of America mobile app next year and will be named Erica; the bank is looking for the tool to help customers better understand their spending habits and offers different ways to stay financially fit; Erica will use artificial intelligence and predictive analytics to help customers make payments, check balances, save money and pay down debt. Source
Bank of America is testing three automated branches in Denver and Minneapolis in an effort to lower branch banking costs; the automated branches will focus their service around automated teller machines and video conferencing; the firm's CEO Brian Moynihan has been focused on reducing costs with a specific focus on lowering branch costs while increasing investment in mobile and digital technologies. Source
Bank of America has optimized auto loan applications for mobile apps and is looking to expand to mortgages with a similar offering; the expansion follows a market trend toward increased demand for digital mortgage offerings; Bank of America plans to launch its mobile mortgage application in 2017 as it seeks to broaden its service availability to a full range of service channels; the mobile offering will expand on the firm's current online mortgage experience which provides for electronic applications and documentation with the benefit of automating and verifying customer information; within the industry, JPMorgan is also developing a mobile mortgage offering through its partnership with Roostify and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce has set a precedent for mobile mortgage service with the launch of its Hello Home product. Source
Bank of America has struck a partnership with Samsung to start a pilot program that will allow Bank of America customers to login using a picture of their eye; the program will start with a group of 1,500 Samsung and Bank of America employees who will test the authentication for six months; according to a past report by American Banker, about half of Bank of America customers login to the mobile app using their fingerprint and the other half login with a username and password; according to Finovate, Samsung debuted this iris scanning technology at their Unpacked event in March and they claim it to be more secure than fingerprint scans. Source
While announcing earnings for Q3 Wells Fargo and Bank of America both revealed how important digital channels are to their bottom line; BofA saw mobile banking users jump 11 percent, mobile usage grew at 19 percent and digital payments grew 9 percent in the past year; Wells Fargo saw digital usage grow 2 percent and digital sessions grow 6 percent; the digital trend shows how much banks businesses are changing. Source.
Consumer and small business credit scoring platform, Nav, will now offer its small and medium-sized enterprise customers loans and financing services by Bank of America; Nav uses its MatchFactor algorithm to help show borrowers their chances of approval and have thus far helped to facilitate funding to over 160,000 companies; Nav CEO and Co-Founder Levi King said, "We are proud to partner with Bank of America, giving business owners even more ways to access the financing they need." Source
Bank of America says it will invest $1.5 million in a Charlotte fintech initiative over the next three years; the investment is the first for the city from a financial services company; regarding the investment, Cathy Bessant, Bank of America's chief operations and technology officer, said: "Charlotte has proven to be a place where a sustainable company can be founded, emerge and grow. Fintech is a significant, new opportunity for Charlotte that connects our strong finance and technology infrastructure with innovatively minded people, creating tech jobs and new paths to economic mobility."; Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts is expected to publicly announce more details on the initiative in the next few months. Source
Bank of America has filed over 20 blockchain and cryptocurrency-related patent applications since 2014; recent applications include the use of blockchain as a distributed database supporting the flow of certain actions; other patents involve the control of data, information verification, peer-to-peer payments and the protection of a generic cryptocurrency. Source
Person to person payments growth was about 67% and accounted for 13.6 million transactions; According to CEO Brian Moynihan the bank processed half a billion dollars in a single week; other banks including Wells Fargo are also reporting increases in person to person payments; Bank of America is also planning to release a mobile offering for auto and home loans along with its AI assistant; Bank of America spent $2.25 billion on tech initiatives in the first nine months of 2017. Source
While banks might have initially been slow to act when it came to embracing digital strategies they are now able...