Credit Union tech-talk News

October 27 - October 31, 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

* CU*NorthWest Converts 2 New CU*BASE Clients
* Chevron FCU Partners with Digital Dialogue 
* Prospera Credit Union Offers GoodMoney
* CUTEK Partners with AgilityFour 

CU*NorthWest, a CUSO serving the Northwest, announced it has converted two new Washington based clients to its enterprise CU*BASE Processing System: Blue Mountain CU in College Place, WA and Spokane Law Enforcement CU. Both new clients will use multiple integrated solutions to include: It’s Me 247 online banking, imaged receipts, electronic signature capture, e-statement and bill payment solutions.

Digital Dialogue, a PSCU Financial Services company and nationwide provider of 24/7 call center operations and software solutions to credit unions, announced that Oakland, CA-based Chevron Federal Credit Union has partnered with Digital Dialogue for 24/7/365 call center and total member service. Chevron FCU has more than $1 billion in assets and 66,000 members.

Prospera Credit Union, headquartered in Appleton, WI, now offers its nationally recognized GoodMoney not-for-profit payday loan alternative as a turnkey solution to credit unions nationwide. To date, two credit unions will offer GoodMoney: Superior Choice Credit Union, Superior WI, and Delta County Credit Union, Escanaba, MI. Credit unions will have access to comprehensive training, advertising support, and marketing materials; while the customized software will be provided by CU*Answers.

CUTEK, a financial technology firm specializing in credit unions using Symitar’s Episys core processing system, has partnered with AgilityFour, a consulting and software solutions provider, to create an online membership application solution for credit unions that are running on the Episys system. The online membership application not only allows new members to join credit unions online with only a few clicks of the mouse 24/7, but enables each field within the membership application to be automatically written to the host system.

Hardware News

If your credit union is looking for business notebooks for your senior managers that cost $850 or less, you may want to consider these three models: the $782 Dell Vostro 1510, the $800 Toshiba Satellite Pro L300D EZ-1003X, and the $829 HP Compaq 6735b. All have 15.4-inch screens, midrange Intel or AMD processors, and wireless networking capability. They all weigh between 5 and 6 pounds and offered a reasonable amount of memory and hard drive space.

With virtualization's popularity soaring, vendors are rolling out specialized servers that cater to the needs of virtual machines. We will tell you the difference between ordinary servers and specialized virtualization-optimized servers in the November issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.

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ATMs/Kiosks

Level Four Software has introduced BRIDGE:test 2.10 which consists of a new regression test manager engine designed to use a database repository for test data. Using open standards-based software, BRIDGE says that they enable credit unions to select alternative suppliers for their ATM and self-service software, while providing the ability to interact more easily with third parties. 

Privier, a Charlotte, NC-based startup, has launched a no-card ATM service called Privier iTransfer and Privier mPayment. The firm says that their iTransfer and Privier mPayment will allow members to electronically transfer funds using online banking or mobile banking, and then have the recipient be able to withdraw the funds without a card or account. Privier equips ATM screens with an icon, which reads 'Pickup Cash.' The recipient presses this icon, which will automatically activate the ATM for a Privier iTransfer or mPayment transaction.

Credit Union 24, the country’s largest credit union-owned ATM and point-of-sale network, has contracted with Member Access Pacific to offer a low-cost and customizable prepaid card solution to credit unions. The card program features reloadable, instant-issue and personalized cards that come with 24/7/365 call-center support. 

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NCP Engineering announced that its Secure Entry Client now supports many biometric devices. The latest compatibility testing has been successfully completed for digitalPersona's U.are.U 4000B USB-based fingerprint reader. By integrating biometric authentication devices into a traditional VPN, NCP says that network administrators have proof that only an authorized user is accessing that laptop, PC or handheld. Further, NCP's Secure Entry Client forces each device to match a specific software and settings profile, defined by the network administrator, before the VPN gateway allows access to the network.  

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Sybase 365 announced the release of the latest version of their mobile banking platform - Sybase mBanking 365 version 2.0. The company says that this release focuses on minimizing deployment time and allows for easy mobile banking integration with the credit union's existing core system. Sybase 365 supports SMS, mobile browser, and rich-client on a single platform. 

Contactless payment stickers, or chip-and-antenna inlays that can be affixed to mobile phones or other tokens to turn them into contactless-payment devices, appear to be making headway in the marketplace. For instance, card manufacturer CPI Card Group claims that they expect to ship “several million” bank-card-branded payment stickers over the next 12 months. CPI is partnering with a French company called Inside Contactless to manufacture the products from so-called prelams, or inlays. Contactless stickers are seen as a way of allowing handsets to perform point-of-sale transactions without the need to embed near-field communication (NFC) chips in the devices. 

CO-OP Financial Services announced that it has selected mFoundry’s financial services platform to deliver mobile banking offerings to credit unions. The service will allow credit union members to verify balances, view transaction history, transfer funds between their accounts, and more. The mFoundry platform will integrate into CO-OP Shared Branching’s Next Generation Network switch to provide mobile banking to members of all credit unions participating in its network.

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Network Box, a worldwide managed security company, has begun beta testing a new, different kind of relationship management technology to combat unsolicited email. The company says that during preliminary testing that they are "catching virtually 100 percent of spam without any false positives." The technology not only analyzes the content and IP addresses, but also learns from user email behavior and relationships to better understand which emails are welcome and which are unsolicited.

Altor Networks says that their Altor VF is the first “purpose built” firewall for virtualized environments. The Altor VF enforces security policy on a per virtual machine basis. Unlike existing firewalls designed for physical networks, the Altor VF virtual firewall can secure Live Migration – a technology designed to trigger automatic movement of VMs across physical servers, but capable of inadvertently moving an application to a less trusted network. The Altor VF provides NetFlow statistics, Sys Log, and other network statistics on a per application basis.

The Federal Trade Commission just announced that it will suspend enforcement of the new Identity Theft Red Flags Rule until May 1, 2009 - six months beyond the original Nov. 1 deadline. This move will give non-banking creditors and state-chartered credit unions additional time to develop and implement written identity theft prevention programs. 

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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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A recent survey by Raddon Financial Group found that financial institutions that score high marks in customer loyalty had an average return on assets of 0.79% vs. 0.56% for those with low scores. High-loyalty institutions also grew deposits at an annual clip of 8.1% vs. 7.5% for mid-loyalty and 3% for low-loyalty institutions. With real estate originations, auto financing and nonsufficient funds charges declining in many areas, Raddon suggests that member loyalty should be a top priority for credit unions. Several factors contribute to member loyalty: branch convenience measured by branch hours; availability of ATMs; staff friendliness; employee knowledge and professionalism; and the ability of staff to answer questions and resolve problems quickly. 

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Many credit unions have introduced savings programs that link checking activity to a savings account. In one scenario, debit purchases are rounded up to the nearest dollar and the excess amount from the purchase is deposited into savings. In another approach, $1 is deposited into savings when the account holder uses their debit card for purchases, pays bills online, or makes automatic payments from checking. According to findings from a recent survey by SYNERGISTICS Research, Gen X and Gen Y consumers expresses significant interest in this type of ‘no-brainer’ savings program. Overall, one-fifth of Gen Y who have checking accounts currently participate in such a savings program. However, more than half of the nonusers express interest. Interest is particularly high among those in Gen Y who are heavy debit card users, using a debit card 20 or more times per month.

Kokomo, IN-based Solidarity Community Federal Credit Union has launched Eastern Corporate Federal Credit Union's DeposZip remote deposit capture solution. The $158-million saw DeposZip as way to increase their footprint without building expensive new branches, or expanding the hours of their existing branches. The credit union's marketing efforts include a direct mail campaign, promotional videos and a free scanner giveaway. 

While online bankers who use online bill payment can't imagine why anyone would still pay bills with snail mail checks, many consumers still do so. What are their objections and how can credit unions get them onboard with online bill pay? We will answer these questions in the November issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.

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Nextiva is a virtual PBX business VoIP service provider that offers small organizations their Connect 360 business phone service as an all-in-one VoIP solution that comes with unlimited local and long distance calling and flat rate pricing. None of their plans have activation or termination fees, and businesses with Nextiva’s service are able to utilize an auto-attendant in order to better route calls when they come in. In addition to the an auto-attendant, the system offers features like find me/follow me, voicemail to email, and hunt groups. 

INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine have awarded RingCentral a 2008 Excellence Award for delivering cloud computing business phone and fax service to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). The company provides a hosted multi-extension business phone and fax service for SMBs. By combining a toll-free or local number with advanced call management, PBX, voicemail and Internet fax, RingCentral enables customers to set up multiple extensions with voicemail, automatically screen, forward and place calls, take voicemail, send and receive faxes, and receive message alerts. 

Microsoft has introduced Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 (R2), an update to the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. The new functionality of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 extends software-powered voice, particularly for remote and mobile workers. In addition, this updated version provides on-premise audio-conferencing; and introduces new developer advances, including the ability to build communications-enabled business processes. It also comes equipped with new capabilities such as dial-in audio conferencing and persistent group chat.

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There are a wide variety of ways to calculate call center agent productivity and performance including:

- Average Handle Time
- Calls Per Hour
- Adherence to Schedule
- Call Quality
- Data Accuracy
- Phone Occupancy 

Some call center experts point out that there are only two metrics which agents have complete control over: schedule adherence and call quality. They argue that these two should be the benchmark for measuring their performance and productivity, and if they are satisfactory then your call center will perform well.

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

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

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

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