The Wall Street Journal has obtained a “document given to top management” of the bank and is reporting that the layoffs are part of cost-cutting measures that will make the company “a leaner and more focused enterprise.

The document states that the plan is to “become a major deal maker around the world” by taking less risk, making more money from existing customers, and using an investment operation from Merrill Lynch, which Bank of America acquired during the financial crisis in 2008. This all translates into fewer local branches and a shrunken mortgage operation.

The Wall Street Journal points out that these cuts will drop Bank of America from its position as the U.S. bank with the most employees. After the layoffs, the bank will have an estimated 260,000 employees – less than J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, or Wells Fargo, the report states.

Bank of America has faced the same financial difficulties that other banks have since the sub-prime mortgage loan crisis began. The company has implemented numerous cost-cutting and revenue-generating changes, including considering charging a fee for basic checking accounts. This has made the bank unpopular with banking customers, and it was the runner-up in The Consumerist’s “Worst Company in America” competition this year.

“Recruiting candidates through employee referrals is widely acknowledged as the most effective method to find talent through trusted contacts. Making recruiting efforts efficient and seamless by leveraging social connections and through mobile applications helps companies find better quality candidates and continue to build the pipeline for future talent,” said Thomas Kurian, Executive Vice President, Oracle Development. “By adding SelectMinds to Oracle’s Talent Management Cloud, Oracle can help customers with a complete talent management solution, enabling streamlined recruiting practices, more quality referrals, faster employee on-boarding, and better performance.”

SelectMinds CEO Anne Berkowitch added, “Oracle’s proposed acquisition of SelectMinds represents a strong endorsement of SelectMinds intuitive social sourcing technology and the value customers have achieved with our solutions. We’re excited to be a part of Oracle, and look forward to combining our resources to better serve and support customers with more global scale.”

Oracle says SelectMinds products are already fully integrated with Oracle Cloud Recruiting, Perfromance Management ANd Human Capital Management solutions.

Oracle has also introduced a new mobile point-of-service extension for retailers called Oracle Retail Mobile Point-of-Service.

“Gartner research shows that retailers are extremely interested in mobile POS as a way to transform the check-out experience,” said Jeff Roster, Research Vice President, Gartner. “As one of the four transformational forces that Gartner has defined as part of its Nexus of Forces research, mobility, including mobile POS, will be a key area for experimentation and investment for retailers going forward.”

In addition to all of that, Oracle has launched its new banking platform, which the company describes as a comprehensive suite of business applications for large global banks.

Would you ever do your banking with your Facebook account? Let us know in the comments.

According to a report from CNN Money, the company has been talking to banks about offering solutions that would allow bank customers to do their banking and engage with their banks using their Facebook accounts. Lauren Barack reports:

“There are certain things, whether itʼs financial services, or banking where I donʼt necessarily want my friends to know exactly what Iʼm doing, right?” David Robinson, Facebook’s director of global marketing solutions, U.S. financial services, asked a crowded room of bankers at a Securities Industries and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) seminar in New York late last month. “I want to be able to go in and have an experience with my advisor or my bank and have that be a one-on-one experience.”

Facebook is quietly planning just such an offering with Australia’s Commonwealth Bank. Currently in an internal beta, with the first version built in March, the application is expected to launch sometime this year to customers. It will allow Facebook users who are bank customers to make payments to third parties as well as Facebook friends through the social media channel, according to the bank. Commonwealth will secure transactions with its own authentication system — similar to how payments are secured on its online and mobile banking site, a spokesperson says.

Even without bank partnerships, Facebook is already looking to provide some banking-type services of its own. Much like PayPal, Facebook users can keep real money in their accounts. It seems like only a matter of time until it becomes an accepted form of payment at businesses around the world.

Last month, the company made a very significant announcement, when it revealed that it would ditch Facebook Credits (historically used to pay for virtual goods within Facebook app) in favor of real, native currencies (Dollars, Pounds, Yen, etc.).

The company didn’t reveal any specific plans to offer payments for goods and services in the physical world, but the move clearly puts Facebook in a position to compete more directly with PayPal (which you can use to pay at places like Starbucks, by the way).

Over 900 million people have Facebook accounts, which are easily accessible via mobile phones, in users’ pockets at most times of the day. If Facebook can convince users to keep their money tied to their Facebook accounts, the company could have a tremendous advantage in the payments space, particularly since users are already spending so much time interacting with content with those accounts.

Facebook obviously has a major hurdle to climb before the majority of users start putting their money into their Facebook accounts, or doing any banking with them. The company doesn’t exactly have the greatest reputation when it comes to user privacy, and that’s a major problem when you’re talking about money.

It’s one thing put your status updates on the site, upload some photos, and share what music you’re listening to on Spotify. It’s another to trust the creators of “frictionless sharing” with your finances and associated information.

At least Robinson made a point to mention that there are things (like banking) he doesn’t want his friends to know about. It sounds like Facebook would at least offer the appearance of a privacy net around any banking endeavors, but getting users to put that much trust into the company who had to be regulated by the FTC for privacy-related issues, may be no easy task.

Of course, the same thing could be said of a major competitor.

Do you trust Facebook enough to keep your money in your Facebook account? Would you ever consider banking with Facebook? Let us know in the comments.

Limitations of a Cashless World

Elderly individuals living in rural areas do not have credit cards and do not know how to withdraw cash through their use. This has made it extremely difficult on this age group considering there are towns where it isn’t at all possible to enter a bank and use cash.

Another limiting factor is that there is a lack of privacy; all transactions leave a paper trail. This could be especially problematic for those who wish to donate to organizations anonymously. The solution on this end would be to offer other ways to pay for services that would protect consumer privacy.

But beyond these concerns is the fact that digital transactions will lead to greater profits for banks. Many business owners will face considerable overhead in transaction fees: Hanna Celik, whose family owns a newspaper kiosk in a Stockholm shopping mall, says the digital economy is all about banks seeking bigger earnings. Celik says he gets charged about 5 Swedish kronor ($0.80) for every credit card transaction, and a law passed by the Swedish Parliament prevents him from passing on that charge to consumers.

It is Difficult to Find Places that Accept Cash in Sweden

It is almost impossible for Swedish people to avoid paying with a credit card. Bills and coins represent only 3 percent of Sweden’s economy, compared to an average of 9 percent in the eurozone and 7 percent in the U.S., according to the Bank for International Settlements, an umbrella organization for the world’s central banks.

Public buses don’t accept cash and a small but growing number of businesses only take cards. Churches have also been following the trend by installing card reading machines so that people could contribute their tithes electronically. This decision was made after several church members said they wanted to make a donation but never carried cash.

Going Digital Increases Safety

But others like Bjoern Ulvaeus, former member of 1970′s pop group ABBA, are very vocal about turning Sweden into a cashless world. After Bjoern’s son was robbed for the third time he started advocating a faster transition to a fully digital economy.

He thinks this transition will make it harder for thieves. According to crime statistics from The Swedish Bank Association this may be a valid point: “The number of bank robberies in Sweden plunged from 110 in 2008 to 16 in 2011 — the lowest level since it started keeping records 30 years ago. It says robberies of security transports are also down.”

Par Karlsson, a security expert at the organization claims, “Less cash in circulation makes things safer, both for the staff that handle cash, but also of course for the public.”

Friedrich Schneider, economics professor of the Johannes Kepler University in Austria said, ” The prevalence of electronic transactions — and the digital trail they generate — also helps explain why Sweden has less of a problem with graft than countries with a stronger cash culture, such as Italy or Greece.”

This has led to an outcry for the government to stop printing bank notes altogether.

Say Goodbye to Those Old Cash Registers

Sweden ranked first for the second time in a row in the Global Information Technology Report released at the World Economic Forum in January. The Economist Intelligence Unit also put Sweden top of its latest digital economy rankings, in 2010.

Many Swedish-based companies are now focused on developing payment and banking services for smartphones. Swedish company iZettel has developed a device that plugs into the back of an iPhone to make it work like a credit card terminal. Sweden’s biggest banks are expected to launch a joint service later this year that allows customers to transfer money between each other’s accounts in real-time with their cell phones.

Will Cash Become Extinct?

Many experts believe that it will not become extinct, instead it will decline in use.

Before retiring as deputy governor of Sweden’s central bank, Lars Nyberg recently stated that cash will survive “like the crocodile, even though it may be forced to see its habitat gradually cut back.’

Andrea Wramfelt, owns a bowling alley in the southern city of Landskrona and stopped accepting cash in 2010; she believes coins and notes will cease to exist in Sweden within 20 years.

BookStrand.com and eXcessica were also given the same ultimatum.

A PayPal spokesman confirmed that the company sent such notifications to companies but declined to identify specific recipients.

PayPal said that it had to restrict certain content to appease banks and credit-card companies. The following statements were made in an e-mail from PayPal to SmashWords on February 14th:

“Our banking partners and credit-card associations have taken a very strict stance on this subject matter.”

“Our relationships with the banking partners are absolutely critical in order to provide the online and mobile services we [offer] . . . to our customers. Therefore, we have to remain in compliance with their rules, which prohibit content involving rape, bestiality or incest.”

Spokespeople at American Express, MasterCard, Visa and big card-issuing banks JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo did not respond to requests for comment but it is important to reflect on how bank policies are bleeding into other industries.

Policy makers that regulate card-issuing banks are essentially gaining a bigger piece of the pie and could ultimately gain inexorable power.

Could banks eventually dictate what books get published? Will retailers like Barnes and Noble need to force customers to pay in cash if they want to offer books that have been branded as obscene?

The survey revealed that consumers are increasingly moving toward online and mobile channels for their daily financial management and that demand for tablet banking services will be growing in the future. According to Fiserv, the proliferation of smartphones, changing consumer expectations and entrance of non-traditional competitors has sparked a literal mobile banking revolution that financial institutions should consider an urgent call to action. To remain competitive in this rapidly evolving area, financial institutions will have to utilize mobile banking and payments strategies. Detailed findings from the survey are available in a free research paper, “Financial Services Continue the Digital Shift,” at www.fiserv.com/research

Consumers have definitely gone digital and are moving beyond only using mobile channels to check balances or locate an ATM. Mobile banking is gaining popularity with a remarkable increase in transactions. Smart users are now taking advantage of being able to pay bills and transfer money online. The survey results found that sixty percent of users use a mobile browser (most common) for mobile banking access. Forty-one percent of those surveyed utilized downloadable apps and thirty-two percent used text messaging.

Geoff Knapp, Vice President, Online Banking, Digital Channels for Fiserv remarks, “Consumers’ lives are becoming more and more digital, and their financial lives are no exception. They are increasingly turning to the online and mobile channels for everything from opening accounts to sending and receiving money, and their interest in using new devices like tablets for financial services is strong.”

Nineteen percent of online households currently own a tablet and another twenty percent plan to purchase one according to the survey. This means almost forty percent of online households could own a tablet by the middle of 2012. Additionally, multi-tablet homes are emerging with thirty-seven percent of current tablet owners saying they plan to purchase another. These current and future tablet owners and operators plan to use them to view monthly statements, pay bills, view real-time account information and transfer money.

BankSimple was co-founded by Alex Payne, a former Twitter engineer, who was there from the beginning, and worked primarily on building Twitter’s developer platform and on the service’s core infrastructure. Think about how much of Twitter’s success has been based upon the developer ecosystem around it. "It was an education in scaling, optimization, and systems architecture, not to mention all the joys and stresses that come with working at a growing startup," says Payne of his time at Twitter.

BankSimple says it is designing "true mobile banking", and shouldn’t be confused with Square, another startup from a Twitter vet (co-founder Jack Dorsey) looking to disrupt the credit card industry. 

"BankSimple is doing something no bank has ever done: We’re designing our web and mobile experiences in tandem," the company says. "Deposit checks by phone. Authorize transactions by phone to prevent fraud. Categorize spending on your phone as it happens. That’s just the beginning."

"Part of Banksimple’s secret sauce is its predictive money management model," wrote Jennifer Van Grove, who interviewed Payne about the company last summer. "While users only need to concern themselves with a single account, there are actually checking, savings and credit accounts tied to that one login. Those will function behind-the-scenes with Banksimple automatically managing funds and transferring money between the accounts as needed."

Based on the interview, it sounds like much of BankSimple’s success will depend on the developer community, not unlike Twitter. It’s a whole new ballgame when you’re talking about bank accounts, though, and Facebook/Twitter integration (which it is supposed to have) could be a little scary for some people. 

BankSimple says its team is made up of people with backgrounds in a range from bank strategy to data science to software engineering, and has worked in financial services, information security, "top-tier" consulting firms, and successful startups. 

Last week, the company announced a new customer relations team, which should be key in its quest to provide customers with a Zappos-like customer experience as described in the interview with Payne. 

The product will be coming this year, according to BankSimple’s website, and they’re currently letting people sign up to be on their beta list.

Mercatus also found that the current pace of mobile adoption is exceeding that of past innovations, such as ATMs, debit cards, and online banking. About a third of consumers are using or at least considering using mobile financial services in the next year. Based on its findings, Mercatus even projects that mobile financial service adoption will exceed the use of online banking by 2015.

"Owing to its rapid pace of adoption, mobile is a market that offers a clear first-mover advantage. Banks that act soon, and aggressively deploy mobile financial services, will capture a clear market opportunity to aggressively deploy mobile financial services," said Bob Hedges, Mercatus managing partner. "Banks that delay will risk losing their best customers to the competition."

Some other findings from the survey include:

- Mobile financial service capabilities were more impactful in a consumer’s decision to select a bank than availability of online banking, access to ATMs, or nearby branches

- Banks offering mobile financial services should anticipate as much as a sixty percent increase in sales lift

- Customer acquisition promotional offers including mobile financial services out-performed those that did not include mobile financial services by nearly thirty percent

- A decrease in cost of acquiring a new customer by as much as twenty percent based on the increased effectiveness of mobile-related customer acquisition marketing

According to the survey, users of mobile financial services:

-Are younger (between age 18 and 39) and have higher incomes

- Hold higher balances at their primary bank, use more banking and card products, and display lower rates of attrition as compared to traditional customers

- Can be serviced at a twenty percent lower cost than traditional bank customers

- Display lower rates of attrition as compared to traditional customers

"Financial Institutions offering mobile services can have a strategic advantage when it comes to attracting new customers," said Tim Attinger, Head of Product Innovation at Visa, who sponsored the survey.

The survey really highlights how mobile our culture is becoming as a whole. As smartphone adoption continues to rise and more sites and apps accommodate them, we’re headed for a very mobile world at a very fast pace.

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For example, if the American people just shelled out $85 billion to save your crooked butt so you don’t drag everybody else down with you, lying low for a while in feigned humility and embarrassment is a better idea than gathering up the boys for a few hundred thousand dollars worth of pedicures and margaritas in a phew-that-was-close party while changing the company initials to stand for “Ain’t Insurance Grand?”

Some hint of remorse and/or gratitude would be good, don’t you think?

Or, if you run one of the biggest predatory lending outfits in the country into the ground and have to rely on Bank of America to bail you out, it’s best not to go on record sneering at your victims’ cries for help. Better advice: If you absolutely must create a document deriding your snookered customers as “disgusting,” be sure you hit the “Forward” button in your email and not “Reply.”

The Consumerist and the LA Times have reported on an email exchange posted by a man named Dan Bailey in a forum at LoanSafe.org, a site dedicated to helping people in mortgage trouble better negotiate with banks. Bailey sent a letter to Countrywide hoping the bank would adjust his adjustable rate mortgage back to where he could afford it, rather than letting it foreclose. He received this reply from Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo, which was obviously intended for someone internally:

This is unbelievable. Most of these letters now have the same wording. Obviously they are being counseled by some other person or by the internet. Disgusting.

Yes, the little people are having to ask the internet for help dealing with crooks. That is disgusting, but in a much different way than Mozilo meant.  

It’s one thing to give sweetheart deals to “Friends of Angelo” while baiting and switching those with more hope than money—people sort of expect a banker to be crooked—but it’s another to sneer at the poor soon-to-be-on-the-street saps as your own fiscal irresponsibility earns you an investigation, public scorn, and likely as not a smaller house than before. Sure, you’ve got friends on Wall Street and in Washington willing to lend a fresh-mint-smelling, not-invisible hand—but we suppose switching those adjustable rate mortgages over to fixed rates is just out of the question, right?

So after being Mr. Potter to every George (Dan) Bailey in the land, you expect George Bailey and the whole town now to come to your rescue, huh? If that’s not disgusting, I don’t know what is.