Credit Union tech-talk News

October 13 - October 17, 2008

• General News
• Hardware News
• Software Updates
• ATMs/Kiosks
• Biometric Digest Highlights
• Wireless World
• Security Section
• Leaders Roundtable
• Technology and Marketing
• Online Banking/E-Commerce/
  Website Design
• Internet Access
• Call Centers
• Conferences

* Fiserv Credit Union Division Signs Four New Core Clients 
* Gladiator Announces Enterprise Security Monitoring Solution 
* CU*NorthWest Announces “Audit Link”
* Open Solutions Named to the 2008 Inc. 5000 Ranking
* Fidelity National Information Services Offers Red Flag Compliance

Fiserv, a leading provider of information technology services to the financial industry, announced that it has signed four credit union clients and will transition three clients to a different Fiserv core system. The division’s newest core system signings include: Menominee Area Credit Union of Menominee, MI; NCI Community Development Credit Union, a start-up credit union in Houston, TX; Bluebonnet Credit Union of Houston, TX; and Millstream Area Credit Union in Findlay, OH. In addition to these new client relationships, three existing credit union clients chose to implement a new core processing solution from within the Fiserv family of products: First Castle Federal Credit Union of Covington, LA; United Energy Credit Union of Houston, TX; and Pasadena Service Federal Credit Union of Pasadena, CA.

Jack Henry & Associates, a leading provider of integrated technology solutions and data processing services for credit unions, announced the availability of the Gladiator Enterprise Security Monitoring (ESM) solution. ESM was developed by Gladiator Technology, the ProfitStars solution that operates as a managed security services provider (MSSP) exclusively for financial institutions. 

CU*NorthWest, an information technology CUSO serving the Northwest announced it has now started offering “Audit Link”, a new compliance service for credit unions. The Audit Link service is being offered through the cuasterisk.com network of partners and provides credit unions a cost effective way to address compliance issues.

Open Solutions, a leading provider of integrated enabling technologies for credit unions throughout the United States, Canada and other international markets, announced its inclusion in the 2008 Inc. 5000, an extension of Inc. magazine’s annual Inc. 500 list, for achieving a three-year sales growth of more than 314 percent. In addition to the overall ranking, Open Solutions also landed in top spots in several sub-categories, including the Top 100 Inc. 5000 Companies by Gross Dollars of Growth; Top 100 Inc. 5000 Companies by Revenue; and Top 100 Financial Service Companies.

Fidelity National Information Services, a Fortune 500 company and a leading provider of core processing, card issuer and transaction processing services to credit unions, announced the availability of its integrated fraud mitigation and compliance solution - FIS Red Flag service - to help credit unions comply with the red flag provisions of the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions (FACT) Act. The FIS Red Flag service is an add-on component of the FIS full account decisioning suite, including FIS QualiFile, an analytics-based risk assessment and decisioning tool for new account opening; FIS ID Verification, the integrated know-your-customer compliance tool; FIS Address Analysis, a service leveraging unique data sources and analytics to detect change of address fraud; and FIS FraudFinder, a new accounts fraud prevention service. 

Hardware News

LaCie introduced its 5big Network, a network attached storage (NAS) system that can accommodate up to 7.5TB of storage capacity. The 5big network is a five-bay RAID storage system that features a built-in Gigabit Ethernet connection. Each of the five Serial ATA (SATA) hard disk bays is lockable and removable, enabling you to "hot swap" drives in the event of a drive failure. The 5big Network features built-in hardware-based RAID support and can support seven different RAID configurations, including RAID 5 and RAID 6. It has a USB 2.0 interface and three external SATA (eSATA) ports to accommodate additional drives. The 5big Network comes in 2.5TB, 5TB and 7.5TB configurations for $899, $1,399 and $1,899, respectively. 

Cisco’s Linksys unit unveiled a wireless Internet surveillance camera for small and midsize businesses. The Wireless-G PTZ Internet Camera with Audio (WVC210) sends live video through the Internet to a Web browser. The WVC210 supports MJPEG CODECs which is designed for large volume storage to a NAS device. The camera also supports 802.1p priority, 802.1q VLANs, and Dynamic DNS protocols, which are designed for multiple IP surveillance applications. The WVC210 can also be managed using HTTPS. The WVC210 costs $297.

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ATMs/Kiosks

According to two independent research entities, Retail Banking Research Ltd. and ESP Payments Practice, NCR is the worldwide leader in ATM deployments. RBR’s “Global ATM Market and Forecasts to 2013” report says that NCR is the largest ATM manufacturer globally with an installed base market share of 30.1 percent. Likewise, in the recently released ESP Payments Practice report, “The Future of ATMs: 8th Annual Market Tracking Study,” NCR shipped more ATMs to U.S. financial institutions than any other ATM provider worldwide. 

DieboldDirect, a division of ATM manufacturer Diebold, offers supplies and accessories for ATMs, drive-thru VAT tube systems and credit union branches. For ATMs, they sell all of the supplies for daily usage including customizable receipt paper, ribbons and ink cartridges, cash cassettes, deposit envelopes, network grids and branding signage. For VAT systems they carry a wide selection of colorful carrier tubes in both middle and end opening designs. 

CO-OP Financial Services announced that all credit unions who belong to its ATM access service, CO-OP Network, now have over 28,000 ATM machines — up from 25,000 — the largest number of surcharge-free ATMs in the country. CO-OP Network released its new figure of 28,000 surcharge-free ATMs, concurrent with a reminder that access to the CO-OP Network is available for all member credit unions.

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A company called Global Rainmaker is targeting financial institutions with their HBOX iris scan system. The system can be used at ATMs or for online banking to verify members. Meanwhile Yemen's CAC Bank has contracted with IrisGuard, to place biometric scanners in all branches, which will be used to identify customers and authenticate all banking transactions. All of the bank’s teller and customer services desks will be equipped with scanners, with the aim of authenticating all transactions to reduce fraud, and identity theft. Along with using the iris scanners at customer service desks, the bank will also install Dual Eye IG-AD100 Iris Cameras at all 80 of its ATMs, and will also look at extending the biometric solutions to time and attendance for bank staff, as well as integrating biometric protection into its online banking services.  

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Currently only one in ten consumers uses a cell phone to perform a banking transaction or seek financial information during a typical week, according to the Morpace Omnibus Study. In fact, two-thirds of consumers are actually unsure whether or not their current financial institution even offers mobile banking capability. The firm says that this somewhat limited familiarity with mobile banking helps account for relatively modest interest levels at present (an average rating of only 4.3 on a 10 point measurement scale). "As might be expected, younger people - particularly those in the 18-34 segment - have the highest awareness, current use and interest levels of any of the subgroups we examined," said a Morpace Financial Services spokesperson. "As awareness and interest in mobile banking spreads to other age groups, and given the speed of technical adoption, we expect to see a steep increase in these measures." 

Credit unions face the same problem with mobile banking as they did with online banking: members are unwilling to pay for basic services. Are there any services that members are willing to pay for when using the mobile channel? We will cover this topic in the November issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.

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Some security firms are reporting that the current financial crisis is making it easier for them to do targeted social engineering and spear-phishing attacks. They are finding it easier to dupe anxious branch employees because they are overly eager or easily coerced into cooperating with “auditors,” or into clicking on bogus email links. Joshua Perrymon, CEO of PacketFocus, stated that “I think phishing and social engineering are the highest risks currently faced by the financial industry.” 

SonicWall is adding a branch-office box to its NSA family of unified threat management appliances. The company has an E-Class line of NSA high-end security gateways and a lower-capacity NSA line, with the NSA 240 filling in the bottom with a 600Mbps firewall, support for 25 VPN clients and 25 site-to-site VPN tunnels. Throughput with all UTM features turned on is 110Mbps. 

According to an InfoWorld report, 99% of malicious risk comes to users through their Internet browser. Email threats are quickly being replaced by website malware, often coming from legitimate but infected sites. The malware scans the visiting user's system for unpatched application software, so it can initiate a "silent install" or prompts the user to install some "needed" component. There are products available that are designed to protect the user's underlying system or setup a secured browser session against unauthorized modification and data interception, but are they effective? We will cover this topic in the November issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now. 

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Core Systems:

Core Systems – Collaborating to Better Serve Members

COCC - http://www.cocc.com Read Joe Trafton's comments: http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/COCC.pdf

CU*Answers - http://www.cuanswers.com Read Randy Karnes' comments: http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/CUAnswers.pdf

Enhanced Software Products - http://www.espsolution.net Read Matt Lefler's comments:    http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/ESP.pdf

Fidelity Information Services - http://www.fidelityinfoservices.com Read John Schooler's comments: http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/FIS.pdf

Fiserv - http://www.cu7.fiserv.com Read John Edwards' comments:     http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/Fiserv_XP.pdf

Fiserv - http://www.cu7.fiserv.com Read Jay Slavin's comments:     http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/Fiserv_Galaxy.pdf

Harland Financial Solutions - http://www.harlandfinancialsolutions.com Read David McConney's comments: http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/HFS.pdf

Open Solutions - http://www.opensolutions.com Read Michael Nicastro's comments: http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/OSI.pdf

ShareOne - http://www.shareone.com Read Daryl Tanner's comments: http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/ShareOne.pdf

Software and Management Associates - http://www.smausa.com Read Michael W. Taylor's comments: http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/SMA.pdf

Symitar - http://www.symitar.com Read Kathy Hooker Burress' comments: http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/Symitar.pdf

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Credit unions are facing numerous challenges to their credit and debit card interchange income, e.g., non-financial institution rivals in payments and the introduction of new payments products, especially for online transactions. Many observers believe that credit unions must look for ways to create more diversity in their payments mix to offset potential interchange losses. For example, research firm Celent suggests using cards to cross-sell members a broader range of products through the use of “enterprise rewards” programs that reward members based on their complete relationship with credit union: loans, debit cards, CDs, online bill payment, etc. Also recommended is a Web interface that enables members to manage their enhanced rewards program.

New Orleans-based ASI Federal Credit Union is piloting a person-to-person micro-loan program called the 8th Degree. Taking a cue from Kiva.org, a website that allows individuals to make micro-loans directly to entrepreneurs in the developing world, the program is designed to spur investments in small businesses along the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast. ASI FCU, along with the Jewish Funds for Justice, will provide micro-loans ranging from $5,000 to $15,000, which will be distributed through ASI. 

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The 2008 Study of Consumer Payment Preferences found that 63% of all consumer purchases are made using electronic payment methods. Electronic payments now account for the majority of payments across all three major payment venues (bill, Internet, and in-store) - including bill payment which was the last bastion of checks. Paper-based payments' share of bill payments shrank from 55 percent in 2005 to 38 percent in 2008. Meanwhile, PIN and signature debit cards continue to gain in popularity for in-store payments, accounting for 37% of purchases in 2008, compared to 21% in 1999.

The Credit Union Executives Society has released a new executive briefing, Social Media—Blogs & Beyond, available free as a benefit of CUES membership. The publication presents an overview of social media tools such as blogs, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter and Flickr, and illustrates how credit unions can use them to build online communities with existing and potential members. 

Zopa, a social deposit/lending site, is closing its US operations. The site, which delivered loan applications and CD customers to six credit union partners, shut down less than a year after opening. The company said that the U.S. credit situation was a major factor and that it wants to focus its efforts in other markets.  

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Nortel announced their latest unified communications solution: the Business Communications Manager 450. The system supports up to 300 employees. It is available from Nortel through strategic vendors such as AT&T, and includes UC features such as: unified messaging, consolidating voice, fax and e-mail messages onto a single device; message forwarding which sends voicemails and faxes to the most convenient desktop or mobile device; “Meet-Me Conferencing” that can establish teleconferences for up to 120 participants; computer telephony integration, which allows the use of third-party applications to control telephone services, such as click-to-call or automatic screen “pop” with consumer information when they call; and “Intelligent Contact Center” functionality, which quickly directs clients to the right contact.

BroadSoft, a provider of VoIP application software, and Microsoft, announced the availability of a hosted unified communications (UC) service that helps organizations improve productivity and enhance communications. The combined solution from BroadSoft and Microsoft is a hosted solution that is built on Microsoft Solution for Hosted Messaging and Collaboration version 4.5 and is integrated with BroadSoft’s BroadWorks business telephony platform. 

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Some contact center experts believe that there should be two parts to evaluating agents: a written test and a performance test. They argue that multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank or true/false questions cannot accurately measure a person’s ability to perform - whether they are a new hire or an established agent. In the November issue of Credit Union tech-talk we will provide some ideas that can make the process of developing the performance assessment more effective and rewarding - subscribe now.

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Catch Tom and Bill Rogers, Associate Editor of Credit Union tech-talk at the following conferences in 2008:

October 15-18, Las Vegas - Firefighters' National Credit Union Summit

November 13-15, New Orleans - Credit Union InfoTech Conference

June 4-5, Lake Las Vegas - Credit Union InfoSecurity Conference

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