Items tagged with Bank
With the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies booming, everyone is looking to make some money off the craze. One of the biggest players that is looking to get into the cryptocurrency craze is Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Word is that the company is looking to set up a trading desk for digital currency like Bitcoin according to sources that claim to be familiar with the plans. Goldman Sachs plans to have the new cryptocurrency desk up and running by June of 2018 according to the sources. If Goldman Sachs is set to enter into markets for cryptocurrency, you can bet other Wall Street firms are looking to do the same. Cryptocurrencies have been very volatile at times losing a huge portion...
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Ah, the digital world. Sometimes, it's easy to realize we're living in it. Things like digital boarding passes and cars that drive themselves are prime examples. But other times, we're wondering what the hold-up is. Now, in the banking world, Wells Fargo is finally answering the call on an issue that seems super obvious. The company announced today that in addition to its popular email or e-receipt option, it is introducing text receipts at its more than 12,000 ATMs across the country. This new service is available to all Wells Fargo Online or Mobile Banking customers who provide their mobile phone number. As the first bank to offer e-receipts to its customers at its ATMs in June 2010, Wells...
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The first time I heard of "Bitcoin", I admit that I found the premise to be a little far-fetched... something that simply wouldn't work. But time and time again, examples creep up that give some credence to the currency, and even today, online vendors have been adding Bitcoin to their lists of accepted payment methods. Most recently, Kim Dotcom's Mega site recently began accepting the currency. Now, we receive word that Bitcoin has become more valuable than 20 other currencies in the world, such as Liberia's and Bhutan's. Today, about $1 billion worth of Bitcoin floats around the Internet, and because some countries are facing severe financial crisis, it has opened the eyes of some at risk to...
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So, here's the reality of the matter: Apple shunned NFC when it introduced the iPhone 5 last year without the hardware necessary for it to engage in tap-and-go payments. But there's always a workaround where there's a will, right? Right! U.S. Bank has just launched its new "Go Mobile" iPhone app for customers in Salt Lake City and Portland, inviting them to be amongst the first to try out payments with an iPhone 4 or 4S. Here's the deal: newly approved U.S. Bank FlexPerks customers who qualify and opt-in for the service will receive a customized U.S. Bank Go Mobile iPhone case along with their new card. As you may have guessed, that case has an NFC chip in it, adding to the iPhone what Apple...
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While Android users still wait for an official Chase bank application, iPhone users can now deposit checks from their iPhones. This new feature is sort of an extension of the new ATM systems at Chase banks, where you deposit a check and the ATM scans it. The updated Chase Mobile app not only allows the typical features that allow you to check your balance, etc. etc., but by taking a picture of the front and back of a check, you can deposit it directly into your Chase account. Additionally, this new QuickDeposit feature is free, although the bad part is you still can't get cash back from your iPhone. An additional feature is Person-to-Person QuickPay. Similar to PayPal, it allows you to pay anyone...
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The bane of many people is the paper check. Why can't the payer at least use PayPal, right? USAA is about to introduce an iPhone app that will end that hassle once and for all. USAA is a financial services organization which includes banking, insurance, and other services. It launched an iPhone app in May to allows users to access accounts and more, and is planning to add a feature to the app that will allow check deposit via iPhone. A customer photographs both sides of the check with the phone’s camera, then hits "Send" at which time the check will enter their check deposit system just as any other transaction would. To reduce fraud risk, only customers who are eligible for credit and have some...
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America’s third largest electronics retailer with 721 stores in the U.S. and 770 in Canada, has petitioned for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond. After losing money in five of the last six quarters and announcing last week it would close 155 stores, Circuit City is seeking bankruptcy protection amidst fears that it would not be able to pay its vendors. The company presently owes Hewlett-Packard Co.$119 Million and Samsung Electronics Co. $116 million.A deal earlier this year that involved Blockbuster Inc. buying the retailer fell through when a preliminary offer was withdrawn. "On Sept. 29, Circuit City reported a loss of $239.2 million that was more than triple from...
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It's not the first time something like this has happened, and it won't be the last. What's worrisome is that it probably happens more often than we know, and we just don't hear about it. No, someone didn't explicitly sell personal info on eBay. What they did was sell a hard drive with the bank account numbers, phone numbers, mothers' maiden names and signatures of 1 million customers of American Express, NatWest and the Royal Bank of Scotland on it. Big oops, right? Fortunately, the buyer was Andrew Chapman, an IT manager from Oxford, and not some scammer. Obviously, the odds are in favor of the buyer either being someone honest, or else just not noticing the extraneous data. The drive originally...
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Bank hacking is up, despite new & improved security measures and growing public awareness regarding internet security: “SecureWorks reported that between June 2006 and December 2006, they blocked attacks from about 808 hackers per bank per month. From the beginning of this year through June, there's been an average of 1,462 hackers launching attacks at each of the company's bank clients. As for the credit unions, SecureWorks reported blocking attacks from 1,110 hackers per credit union per month. That number rose to 1,799 this year.” What is the root of the increase in hacking? One of the key reasons is the virus kits that are readily available for purchase.It used to be that it took...
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PayPal is a real, live bank now. In Luxembourg, anyway. It's not currently allowed to be an American bank, partly because of the complexity of their arrangements with other financial institutions like GE and Mastercard. A funny thing has happened to that funny little payment service you use to buy junk on eBay; it's beginning to make the internet auction site that is its parent look like the little brother, at least least growth-wise. PayPal has designs on the greater e-commerce market, which is expected to top $300 billion in the U.S. alone by 2010, up more than 50% from current levels. Last year, PayPal processed about 6% of all online payments worldwide. And in the first quarter,...
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Inbox awash in unread messages? Find yourself clicking "Save As New" over and over thinking you'll write a more intelligent reply later, but "later" never seems to come? Do you have a Post-It note stuck to your screen to remind you to buy more Post-It notes? Are you the Haley Joel Osment of personal communication, because there are messages so old in your in-box they're from dead people now? If so, perhaps you should try "e-mail bankruptcy." Those declaring bankruptcy are swearing off e-mail entirely or, more commonly, deleting all old messages and starting fresh. E-mail overload gives many workers the sense that their work is never done, said senior analyst David Ferris,...
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HotHardware mentioned earlier this week that Google had surpassed Microsoft as the most visited internet site. And pretty much every Tech analyst and Apple fanboi has been talking non-stop about the problems Microsoft has had getting their latest OS, Vista, to click with the public. Well analysts or no, the cash register doesn't lie: Vista and Office gains translated to a quarter that surpassed Microsoft's earlier forecast and analysts' expectations—and they augur stronger results this year and next than Wall Street was predicting. Microsoft increased its guidance for the fourth quarter and suggested that results in fiscal 2008 might come in ahead of analyst projections. The...
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