Credit Union tech-talk News

November 3 - November 7, 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 6 New Core Clients
* Open Solutions Signs 2 New Credit Unions
* SEMC Chooses NewSolutions
* eDOC Innovations and Corporate One FCU Partner 
* Cash Flow Management Announces Planned CFM Software Integration with Open Solutions

Fiserv, a leading provider of information technology services to the financial industry and the largest provider of business-driven technology solutions for credit unions, announced that it has signed six credit union clients to core processing contracts for its Premier, OnCU and Advantage data processing systems. The division’s newest core system signings include: Miami Firefighters FCU; Knoxville Post Office CU; Amoco East Texas FCU; Canandaigua FCU; Grand Adirondack FCU; and New Century FCU. In addition to these new client relationships, two existing credit union clients chose to implement a new core processing solution from Fiserv: Central Florida Postal CU and Dane County CU.

Open Solutions, a leading provider of integrated, enterprise-wide data processing technologies for credit unions throughout the United States, Canada and other international markets, announced that two credit unions have selected The Complete Credit Union Solution -sme (Standard Market Edition) to address their enterprise-wide core processing needs. The credit unions are Oldham Family Alliance FCU in Baltimore, MD ($15 million); and Heritage USA FCU in Midland, TX ($38 million). 

Share One, a CUSO with a client base of credit unions to $1 billion, announced that Edgewood, KY-based SEMC FCU recently contracted with Share One to convert from their legacy core processing system to NewSolutions. The credit union selected the system based on a number of functionality issues; closest to the top of the list were the Windows based operating platform and the easy data mining functionality.

eDOC Innovations (EDI), a leading CUSO for e-document strategies, announced that it is
partnering with Corporate One Federal Credit Union, a leading wholesale financial services provider. The partnership of both equity and services brings together 3 industry leaders; eDOC Innovations, Corporate One and CU*Answers. The purchase of eDOC Innovations stock by Corporate One solidifies availability of the e-document strategy solutions to more than 790 Corporate One clients.

Cash Flow Management announced formal plans for a full online integration of their CFM Cash Automation Software technology with Open Solutions’ TCCUS Standard Market Edition (sme) credit union core processing software using their CFM S4 Series software. CFM S4 was developed to allow the consolidation of all cash automation hardware components, i.e. cash dispensers, cash recyclers and coin dispensers with complete online integration to core processing platforms.

Hardware News

There have long been power benchmarks for PCs and servers, such as those from the Energy Star program of the Environmental Protection Agency. But the networks that link those systems haven't been held to the same level of scrutiny. Now router maker Juniper Networks and test equipment vendor Ixia have partnered to unveil the Energy Consumption Rating (ECR) Initiative for measuring the power efficiency of certain classes of network devices. The ECR methodology can determine the number of watts a network element consumes per gigabit per second of traffic. ECR today is designed to test individual systems in the network, but over the next year, the group plans to work out a way to test the efficiency of the whole network.

Lenovo announced a new ThinkCentre desktop - the M58/M58p - with added remote manageability. The machine uses Power Manager, which is designed to lower energy costs by enabling system administrators to remotely monitor and adjust the amount of electricity used by the PCs. For example, Lenovo noted that the PCs can be programmed to shut down evenings or weekends. The ThinkCentre M58/M58p also supports Hardware Password Manager, which enables administrators to remotely check on various system passwords and deal with issues that arise with them.

With electricity pricing soaring in many areas of the country, IT Departments are feeling increased pressure to rein in energy consumption. Some are turning to server virtualization and consolidation, while others are powering down servers that aren't in use. This practice is fairly controversial among IT pros - some say that it is a bad practice that can be harmful to the machinery. We will cover this topic in depth in the December issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.

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ATMs/Kiosks

The ATM Industry Association, a global ATM trade association with more than 1,100 members in 50 countries, is offering an ATM management program. The program is free for ATMIA members.

Fees for withdrawing cash from an out-of-network ATM rose again this year, according to a survey released by Bankrate.com. The average cost of using another institution's ATM is now $3.43, up 13 percent from last year. The $3.43 average ATM fee includes the surcharge levied by the ATM's owner for nonaccount holders ($1.97) as well as the fee institutions charge for using an out-of-network ATM ($1.46). Nearly all ATMs have surcharges for nonaccount holders, according to Bankrate.com. 

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British bank HSBC is rolling out biometric facial recognition technology from OmniPerception at some of their data centers. They will install 10 access control systems based on OmniPerception's CheckPoint technology to verify the identity of employees and contractors and protect sensitive data at the sites. CheckPoint uses "light immune" cameras - which the vendor says work in gloomy conditions - alongside identity verification software -to protect access to restricted areas.  

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MasterCard has launched a facility for card issuers to install PayPass contactless payments functionality onto consumers' mobile phones over the air. The MasterCard Over-the-Air Provisioning Service lets issuers transfer a PayPass application onto a secure area of NFC enabled handsets via the mobile network. Consumers then personalize the application with their individual payment account details over the air. Account holders will then be able to make low value payments at the point of sale by swiping their phone against specially equipped terminals. Retailers that have PayPass systems include McDonald’s, Rite-Aid, United Artist Theaters and BestBuy. However, US wireless carriers aren’t supporting the type of phones necessary to communicate with the PayPass system at this time.

Over the last 18 months there have been a number of strong marketing campaigns promoting mobile banking, but here is a new one: sign up for mobile banking and get a free mobile phone. To help launch their mobile banking solution Regions is giving away 25,000 free "high-end" phones (i.e. Blackberry Pearl, LG Shine, or LG enV). Some observers note that the 2-year relationship required to get the new phone will bring them enough profit to cover the initial cost of the phone.

Pacific Service Credit Union is allowing members to get up-to-the-minute rates with their mobile devices via SMS. They simply text 60529 with the message “autorate,” “cdrate,” “mmrate” to instantly get up to the minute rates on auto loans, certificates of deposit or money market accounts.

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Earlier this month the US Federal Trade Commission warned that phishers would take advantage of upheavals in the financial marketplace to confuse people into handing over personal information. According to security services firm MessageLabs this is coming true. They note a surge in the number of phishing e-mail attacks against financial services firms. The increasing volume of bogus messages are offering mortgages, debt consolidation, credit counseling and other 'financial advice.' Meanwhile according to CardCops, stolen credit card numbers are fetching only $2 or $3 each on today’s market, while “full profiles,” data sets that include a credit card, mother’s maiden name, date of birth, social security number and possibly an ATM PIN, command $10 apiece. 

Mandiant released their newest free tool for incident response and forensic investigations. The tool, Memoryze, can acquire an image of physical memory from a running Windows system. It can image just the memory of a single process or a driver, list all running processes (even those hidden by rootkits), and list network sockets and strings (URLs, e-mail addresses, passwords, etc). Memoryze also has several specific capabilities that can help determine if a rootkit is running such as reporting on device and driver layering, identify all loaded kernel modules and identify hooks often used by rootkits. Memoryze contains a small subset of the functionality available from Mandiant Intelligent Response (MIR) that can do all of the above and more, but at an enterprise level. 

One security vendor claims that their appliance can "block 100 percent of unsolicited email with zero administration." We will take a look at their functionality and the validity of their claims 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 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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Giesecke & Devrient, one of the world’s largest providers of payment transaction cards, recently delivered its latest range of card products to financial institutions in Germany, the United States and China. They include a scented credit card, a card branded Crystal Card, and a card to which a mini CD card can be attached with a snap-on mechanism. The company says that credit and debit cards are gradually evolving into lifestyle accessories and represent a highly efficient means of attracting new members and promoting member loyalty. The scented cards can emit a fragrance of coffee, orange or cinnamon when they touch the user’s fingers. In a related development, the CPI Card Group has produced millions of bioPVC cards that according to the firm are made from a 99 percent PVC product that biodegrades in nine months to five years in soil, water, compost, or wherever microorganisms are present.  

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The US Federal Reserve Board says it will increase the processing fees for paper checks by 41% next year as it looks to encourage migration to electronic collection. In contrast, the Fed says fees for the Reserve Banks' electronic payment services will increase by just 2%. The Fed says the number of checks deposited electronically has grown rapidly in 2008. In August, the proportion deposited with the Reserve Banks for collection was around 83% and by the end of the year this is expected to surpass 90%. 

Mechanicsburg, PA-based Members 1st Federal Credit Union has setup a website to offer other credit unions convenient access to information about participating in loans that they are offering. The $1.4 billion credit union offers a list of loans for sale, as well as due diligence information.

A large payments vendor is coming out with a patent-pending distributed payment capture solution that they claim is designed to be significantly more efficient and cost effective than typical remote deposit capture products. Their approach eliminates the need for a PC to drive the remote capture device and requires minimal hardware and software setup. We will cover it in the December issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.

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Colorado-based IP5280 specializes in business VoIP services that scale all the way down to a home office and all the way up to a Fortune 500 company. They say that their Polycom HD Voice phones offer quality that is much better than what people are used to in the PSTN world. The Polycom SoundPoint IP 650 HD phone has a USB port in the back of it, which allows for selective call recording capabilities in the call center. They say that the phones also help employees who have hearing issues or are hearing impaired, and that all employees are able to communicate better on the phone as a result of HD voice. The firm is convinced that hosted VoIP not only gives customers the flexibility and features they have never had before and cost savings, but now the quality is actually better with the high definition Polycom phones.

The Computer Technology Industry Association (CompTIA), an organization representing business interests of the information technology industry, released a survey showing that organizations that give their employees the flexibility to work from home profit from productivity improvements, lower operational costs, and from being able to find and retain talented workers. Nearly 60 percent of respondents checked off cost savings as another significant benefit of telecommuting. Other advantages of telecommuting that respondents cited include: 


- The ability to hire the most qualified staff, regardless of where they live (noted by 39 percent of respondents)

- Higher employee retention rates (37 percent)

- Decrease in employee stress (25 percent) 

- Ability to reduce auto emissions (17 percent)

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Plantronics announced the launch of a new EncorePro wideband headset for contact centers. The headsets are built to offer wearing comfort and include lightweight nylon composed plush leatherette ear pads that spread over the ear for extended wearing. It also features a noise canceling microphone and is available in both monaural and binaural versions for $137 and $160 respectively.

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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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