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Analysis by the social network analytics company Orgnet.com shows how rumors fueled a run on Swedish-owned banks in Latvia over the weekend.

Banking officials are calling it the world's first ever social media-fueled run on banks, and officials say that the misinformation campaign may have been a deliberate attempt to destabilize Latvia amidst the ongoing European debt crisis.

With quadrillions of dollars on the line, banks and financial institutions pay close attention to the emerging exaflood of available data about their customers and the world around them. Here at the O'Reilly Strata conference on big data, the panel on big data in the banking world was fascinating. It's likely an indication of the way the rest of the world is likely to move in the near future - at least if you believe the predictions of the people on the panel.

Huge opaque markets are about to become transparent because of new regulations and that means a whole lot of new data available for analysis. Scalable processing of that data will require outsourcing, giving birth to new industries. Millions of people will need to be trained to deal with all this. Below, my notes from this fascinating panel discussion.

This week, Citibank released a new banking application for iPad, designed to give customers access to common banking tasks (balance checks, bill pay, transfers, etc.) as well as financial analysis tools. While we don't (and can't) cover all mobile application launches individually, the new Citibank iPad is an interesting case study that shows how a large organization has thoughtfully developed a platform-specific application instead of simply repackaging its mobile app for the bigger tablet-sized screen.

In addition, the financial tools now available in the Citi iPad app seem to take inspiration from similar online services, like Intuit's money management suite at Mint.com, for example. And, says the company, the iPad app's progress won't stop here. It will be under constant evolution, getting "smarter" over the coming weeks, and may even help users manage offers and rewards in the future.

Wells Fargo recently rolled out a mobile payments pilot program in San Francisco, allowing the bank to test NFC (near field communication) technology in a real-world environment. The program's goal, says Peter Ho, product manager for Wells Fargo Card Services and Consumer Lending, is to understand how customers look at mobile payments. The pilot is still very much in an exploratory phase, with just 200 banking customers involved.

But that's not to say that Wells Fargo isn't sold on NFC's potential. "NFC is a very strong and valuable technology coming into the market," says Ho.

The personal finance startup Wesabe may be dead, but its code lives on. Former team member Brian Donovan recently open sourced the framework used to connect with bank websites and download statements in a machine-readable form. This might not sound impressive, but with thousands of banks just in the U.S., all with different website setups, entire companies like Yodlee have been built around solving this problem.

By open sourcing the code, Wesabe makes it possible for hobbyists, researchers and starving startup founders to build new and innovative personal finance tools. The code itself is pretty bare bones; Brian admits he'd hoped to spruce it up before release but his new job didn't leave much time for a labor of love. What's crucial though is that it's a battle-tested system with broad coverage, and has a simple system for adding support for new institutions.

Since 2007, mobile banking has more than doubled in use. According to analyst firm Forrester, this trend will continue, with usage again doubling by 2015, but analyst Emmet Higdon says that a few changes and realizations need to be made for mobile banking to really catch on.

According to Higdon, mobile banking lacks "any clear differentiated functionality" and "appeals most strongly to those consumers already inclined to use the mobile channel." To really gain adoption, says Higdon, "U.S. banks will need to enhance today's functionality significantly."

Really "like" your local coffee shop? Soon, you'll be able to "like" the shop on Facebook thanks to NFC (near-field communications) pioneer Bling Nation, whose mobile phone stickers are also used to perform mobile payments at participating merchants.

With the new "FanConnect" platform, announced at PayPal's Developer Conference yesterday, businesses can connect with consumers on both Facebook and up-and-coming location-based network Foursquare. All the customer has to do is wave their phone near the store's accompanying NFC reader.

The latest tool to fight identity theft may already be in your pocket - it's your mobile phone. Using a new solution from Clickatell, a mobile messaging service provider, consumers can be alerted to suspicious bank transactions via text message. The service called Clickatell SMS Receipts notifies banking customers of account activity via SMS alerts. With this real-time information, consumers are instantly able to verify legitimate use of their account or detect fraud.

A couple of entrepreneurs out of Kerala, India, are re-envisioning the way that banking is done. Anish Achuthan (26) and Rameena Rabeedin (28), have developed a branchless network consisting of low-cost ATMs, Smart Teller Machines, E-POS terminals, and a mobile banking gateway that lets you perform transactions using your cell phone. The end result of their efforts brings modern banking technologies to semi-urban and rural markets where traditional banks are unwilling or unable to set up ATMs.