Credit Union tech-talk News

November 10 - November 14, 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 Launches UChoose Rewards
* CUNA Mutual Recognizes 5 for Excellent Lending
* Summit Financial Technologies Canada Announces 2 New Clients
* Passageways Gains 150th Client

Fiserv, a leading provider of information technology services to the financial industry, announced the introduction of its UChoose Rewards solution, a loyalty product which provides merchant-funded and issuer-funded rewards capabilities for credit union members. UChoose Rewards will give members the ability to earn rewards through both debit and credit card usage at hundreds of national, regional, local and online retailers. 

Five credit unions were recognized for their lending prowess by receiving CUNA Mutual Group’s Excellence in Lending Awards at the CUNA Lending Council’s 14th annual conference. The awards were presented to:

- US Community Credit Union, Nashville, Tenn. – Consumer Lending, Assets less than $250 million 
- SAFE Federal Credit Union, Sumter, S.C. – Consumer Lending, Assets more than $250 million 
- First Alliance Credit Union, Rochester, Minn. – Mortgage Lending, Assets less than $250 million 
- UW Credit Union, Madison, Wis. – Mortgage Lending, Assets more than $250 million 
- ASI Federal Credit Union, Harahan, La. – Low to Modest Means 

Summit Financial Technologies Canada announced that two new clients have contracts to implement the iSpectrum core banking system. iSpectrum is the advanced core banking system developed by Summit Financial Technologies Canada, part of Fiserv Solutions of Canada, a business unit of Fiserv. Greater Vancouver Community Credit Union and the Lutheran Church Canada, Alberta/British Columbia District are the latest organizations to select iSpectrum.

Passageways, a leading provider of Collaborative Portals for credit unions, announced that Mutual 1st Credit Union based in Omaha, NE ($105M in asset size) became their 150th customer earlier this month. This comes within a month of Passageways being ranked as the 27th fastest growing software company in America recently by Inc magazine.

Hardware News

SanDisk announced a new flash memory management system called ExtremeFFS that it says will dramatically improve two of the main weaknesses today in the emerging technology of solid state drives (SSD). SanDisk said that ExtremeFFS should boost the speed of writing common types of data to SSDs by as much as 100 times. ExtremeFFS also allows data to be written to disk without erasing and rewriting nearby stored data. That, along with the ability to move data around to ensure that the physical memory blocks wear out evenly, should boost the longevity of SanDisk SSDs.

TimeSight Systems has launched what could be the first lifecycle management package for video surveillance data. TimeSight Video Lifecycle Management consists of four models that capture, store and manage both motion and non-motion video data. The models are differentiated by the number of processors, memory, expansion slots and RAID support. Each appliance can reduce the amount of data being stored by 90% using H.264 compression. Interdependent motion handling also uses H.264 compression rules to store and retain all video on less storage. Their software can search through what TimeSight calls events of interest to allow detection, location and review of video data. VLM supports both existing analog and IP cameras. 

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ATMs/Kiosks

Level Four, a supplier of open standards-based ATM software, announced a new global partnership with Polaris Software Lab Limited, a provider of specialty application development and testing services in the banking sectors. The agreement will enable credit unions to benefit from a complete end-to-end outsourced testing solution, combining Level Four’s automated ATM testing application, BRIDGE:test, with Polaris’ testing services. 

Credit Union 24, the country’s largest credit union-owned ATM and point-of-sale network, is working with ATM operator Cardtronics to provide credit unions with an ATM Branding program designed to expand a credit union’s market presence. The program allows credit unions to brand ATMs in their existing and emerging markets. The ATMs, owned by Cardtronics and placed with leading national retailers across the country, are surcharge-free for members for the branding credit unions, which are able to place their logos, signage and transaction-screen messages on the ATMs.  

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A West Virginia-based company has come out with a biometrically enabled check fraud prevention system. The system applies facial recognition technology to live surveillance camera output and the photo located on the ID card presented with the check. Find out more about it in the December issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.   

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Based on a recent survey by Compass Intelligence, an estimated 7.2 percent of mobile phone users that are 18 or older and employed use mobile banking. Highlights of the survey are displayed below:

- Smart phone users are a key factor influencing the use of mobile banking. 20.5% of smart phone users currently use mobile banking, while only 2.7% of basic cell phone users use mobile banking.
- Younger users are much more likely to use mobile banking.
- Men are more likely than women to use mobile banking.
- Push-to-talk service users are more likely to use mobile banking than average mobile phone users.

Mobile money transfer and contactless NFC (Near Field Communications) will together account for 50% of the overall mobile payment market globally by 2013, (based on the gross transaction values), according to Juniper Research's new Mobile Payments Study. The Juniper report found that the mobile payments market, which is today is dominated by purchases of digital goods such as ringtones, music, and games, will in the future be driven by subscribers transferring money and using NFC features on their handsets to make purchases. This will drive the overall mobile payments market to grow by a factor of ten between now and 2013. 

Visa is rolling a new "Visa Micro Tag" that attaches to a key ring. This is Visa's smallest "payWave"-enabled device to-date. A Visa account number is not required to be embossed or printed on the device. 

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Microsoft just released their new Security Intelligence Report that is based on malware data gathered from millions of Windows PCs from around the world. It found that Trojan downloaders and droppers were the most prevalent threat to these machines in the first half of 2008. This type of malware made up more than 30 percent of all malware cleaned off of Windows machines during that period. Trojans and other backdoor malware -- which often sneak past antivirus and antispyware scanners -- are typically used to steal credentials (e.g., online banking) or for botnet proliferation. Microsoft found that these threats are increasing, while viruses dropped from nearly 10 percent in the second half of last year to less than 5 percent from January through June of this year. Spyware also declined during the same period, from nearly 5 percent to about 2 percent. 

The term 'social engineering' has been around since the 1990s, but the concept of tricking someone into doing something or divulging sensitive information has been around for ages. Criminals continue their social engineering exploits by employing a mix of old and new tactics. We will cover some of their most popular techniques in the December 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 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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Digital Signage Today has launched the Digital Signage Software Comparison Wizard, a publication and interactive software tool that helps credit unions select the right software for their digital signage product. With several hundred digital signage software products on the market, deployers have to wade through quite a bit of information to make informed decisions about which software product is right for their deployments. The wizard identifies more than 65 attributes — operating system, deployment platform, media types supported, integration with advertising plans, etc. — and delivers a comprehensive grid that spells out the exact capabilities of more than 130 digital signage software products.

A new tool from CO-OP Financial Services will allow credit unions to view and analyze cardholders’ usage behavior. “CO-OP Revelation” includes a first tier, Usage Analytics, which lets credit unions view, analyze and manage card usage information on all its members in a simple, user-friendly format. Cardholder behavior can be determined based on merchant type, network, and type of transaction (signature debit, PIN POS and ATM).

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Maryland-based SafeNet has released ViewPIN+, a Web-based PIN issuance solution that automates the issuance and delivery process of personal identification numbers (PIN). ViewPIN+ is designed to cut costs, prevent PIN fraud, and improve cardholder satisfaction for card issuers. ViewPIN+ enables cardholders to instantly retrieve their PIN through the card issuer's website via computer or mobile devices. 

Since research firm Forrester first started tracking where US online consumers pay bills, biller sites have always led the way. Although financial institutions had been closing this gap over the past five years, FI bill pay growth has stalled in the past 12 months, while the number of biller site bill pay users has grown 17%. According to the firm, this growth is being driven by: ease of use, speed of payments, and availability of same-day and credit card payments. Forrester recommends that credit unions try to match the simplicity and flexibility of biller sites if they are to attract, and retain, the next generation of bill pay consumers. 

The National Association of Realtors announced that they have received a charter to launch a federal credit union. This will be an Internet-based credit union for the estimated 1.2 million members of the National Association of Realtors across the country. Service will be provided by a 24/7 call center in addition to the Internet support.

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Mitel announced the general availability of its Mitel 3000 communications system for small to mid-sized organizations. The 3000 aims to provide them with advanced features such as conferencing, centralized voicemail, and an automated attendant for routing incoming calls. The Mitel 3000 communications system can accommodate up to 52 employees as well as analog devices, including fax machines.

Aspect, a unified communications software and services provider, just released Aspect Unified IP 6.6. The Aspect platform provides inbound, outbound and blended multi-channel contacts by providing unified communications based on session initiation protocol (SIP-)-based VoIP software. The update includes an "ask-an-expert" feature using the instant messaging and presence technology provided in Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. 

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Many credit unions have quality monitoring programs in place for their contact center voice calls, but what about for email servicing? We will cover some different ways of monitoring email quality in the December issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.

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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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