Credit Union tech-talk News

September 8 - September 12, 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

* Share One Signs Family 1 FCU
* Top CU Executives Attend RFG Conference
* Kern Schools FCU Launches KnowledgePortal360
* FSCC, Ongoing Operations & Digital Dialogue Partner to Help CUs
* Northwest FCU Chooses with iSekurity

Family 1 Federal Credit Union, Placentia, CA, recently contracted with Share One to convert to their NewSolutions core processing system. The conversion is scheduled for March of 2009. Share One is a CUSO with a client base of over 60 credit unions ranging up to over one billion dollars in asset size.

Raddon Financial Group (RFG), a strategic business unit of Open Solutions, hosted its annual CEO/Directors’ Forum for CEOs and directors of credit unions with assets in excess of $500 million or more. The forum was capped by RFG’s inaugural Crystal Performance Awards dinner, during which RFG recognized eight credit unions for high performance in 2007: America First CU, Coast Central CU, Lockheed FCU, Los Angeles Firemen’s CU, Mountain America CU, Randolph-Brooks FCU, San Diego County CU and SchoolsFirst FCU. 

TFactor, a developer of eLearning and learning content authoring, web conferencing, and eMarketing solutions, announced that Kern Schools Federal Credit Union has launched a new training initiative – CULearn. Powered by TFactor’s KnowledgePortal360, CULearn will deliver training to the credit union’s 600+ employees and member education services to its 170,000 members.

Officials at Financial Service Centers Cooperative (FSCC), Ongoing Operations and Digital Dialogue, a subsidiary of PSCU Financial services, announced that they are reaching out to credit unions to assist them during this hurricane season by offering disaster recovery and business continuity tools. The three CUSOs have been working together for several years to assist credit unions in all stages of disaster planning.

iSekurity, a full-service identity theft protection and detection company comprised of the largest collection of former federal agents in the US, announced a flagship partnership agreement with Northwest Federal Credit Union (NWFCU), a full-service credit union serving select government employees and more than 400 companies in Northern Virginia. The partnership allows NWFCU to offer iSekurity’s identity theft protection and detection service to more than 97,000 NWFCU members.

Hardware News

The Speed Dome camera from DIGITUS is a versatile surveillance camera that comes equipped with a motion-sensitive tracking mode. The 22x optical zoom enables the surveillance of property from a great distance, and provides high-resolution images. In addition to video signals, audio signals can also be transmitted with the aid of the optional microphone. The camera is controlled by the Central Management System (CMS) also included as part of the package, which can control up to 16 cameras simultaneously and allows access from several computers. The Speed Dome Camera DN-16055 runs around $900.

Power over Ethernet (PoE) sends voltage down the network wires to power a variety of digital devices. Right now it is somewhat limited, but a new standard is coming out called PoE Plus that will support a wide range of devices. Find out more in the October issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now. 

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ATMs/Kiosks

Retail Banking Research (RBR) has just published the latest edition of their global ATM survey, ‘Global ATM Market and Forecasts to 2013’. The 170 country report shows that last year, the worldwide ATM market grew by more than ever before – undermining reports that the days of cash are numbered. In more mature ATM markets, growth in new locations has slowed, but there has been healthy demand for replacement units, often upgrading terminals to higher specifications and more advanced functionality. For example in the mature North American market, the total proportion of shipments represented by replacements is more than 90%, and is set to rise to 99% by 2013 as the deployment of new installations stalls. 

Toronto-based Smart Processing Solutions has launched SmartIssuerPro which is card-issuing and management software designed to let credit unions issue and manage their own debit, prepaid, and credit card programs in-house. SmartIssuerPro also can be integrated with the Smart Processing Suite family of solutions to deliver an end-to-end transaction switching, processing and authorization solution.

Three billion dollar Pennsylvania State Employees Credit Union (PSECU) has joined CO-OP Network, the nation’s largest surcharge-free ATM network operated by CO-OP Financial Services. PSECU, ranked 25th as the largest credit union in the U.S. and the largest in Pennsylvania in terms of assets serving nearly 340,000 members, cited the 25,000 surcharge-free ATMs, particularly those located in 7-Eleven and Costco stores as among the primary factors in choosing CO-OP Network. 

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Tampa-based Ceelox has adapted Ceelox ID, a biometric Identity Access Management (IAM) tool, to work with Citrix servers and client computers. Ceelox ID does not require the system administrator to either change or create new accounts for users. It searches for the bio-templates on both local and server computers, allowing users to log on to their computers even when the server is not available. Users slide their finger for LAN, program and website access. Ceelox says that Ceelox ID is the first biometric IAM tool to allow multiple Citrix clients to work transparently with as many Citrix servers as necessary. 

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Visa announced that it has 14 international mobile payment trials or tests underway that mostly involve near-field communication (NFC) payment technology on cell phones, transit cards and other assorted form factors. Visa's U.S. mobile efforts have entailed testing handsets with embedded contactless payment chips and pilots of alerts and offers using text messaging. "Our strategy is a global channel strategy that can be customized for the specific needs of a given market," a Visa spokesperson said.

Contactless RFID is well established for access control for buildings, and it is making headway around the world for so called ‘biometric passports’ and contactless credit cards. However a British company called Peratech says that contactless skimming can be done without the owner even being aware that it has happened. In response, they have developed a very thin, pressure-sensitive switch that can be embedded into a credit card or passport. Only when the switch is squeezed by the owner will the device become active. 

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The vice chairman of TJX is claiming that the massive data breach at TJX could have been prevented if the American electronic payment system utilized Europe and Asia's strategy of embedding payment cards with Chip-and-PIN technology. In recommending additional encryption of payment card data as it is transferred between retailers and financial institutions, the TJX executive suggests that card companies, retailers, and financial institutions split the costs of upgrading to a Chip-and-PIN system. 

Panda Security has noted an increase in the deployment of malware under the guise of 'antivirus products' to defraud users. These applications, classified as adware by PandaLabs, pass themselves off as antivirus utilities and often appear on the Internet as free downloads. Alternatively, they can be concealed in other files downloaded by users, including music or video files. Once on a system, they tell the user that a virus has been detected. They then invite them to buy the full version of the 'antivirus software' to 'disinfect' the computer. If users don’t purchase the antivirus, it continues displaying non-existent infections and pop-ups inviting users to purchase the security software, which in reality does not detect or delete anything. 

Even a minor change to one firewall rule can cause problems on that firewall or other corporate firewalls, and possibly affect your overall security posture. That is why there are so many new security vendors coming out with firewall management tools handle previously manual tasks. We will cover some affordable options in the October issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe today.

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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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Seattle business-intelligence software vendor Tableau has released the 4.0 version of its data visualization tools, emphasizing the product's ease of use and ability to apply data against maps. The software can take any data file that contains geographic fields, such as a zip code, and automatically detect the presence of those fields, geo-code it, present it on a map. Tableau Desktop pricing is $999 per user; this version can tap Excel, Access and text files. The professional edition is $1,800 per user and connects to a wider range of sources. 

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Small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) are increasingly turning to credit cards as an alternative to financial institution loans for financing expansion plans and other needs, especially as financial institutions tighten their credit standards. The National Small Business Association (NSBA) says the percentage of companies that use credit cards has climbed from 16% in 1993 to 44% today; meanwhile, the percentage of small businesses using traditional loans fell from 45% to 28% over that same time. 

A new survey of more than 7,600 consumers reveals that cardholders are the most satisfied with American Express credit cards, followed by Discover credit cards. The study measured customer satisfaction by examining interaction; billing and payment process; fees and rates; reward programs; and benefits and services. The second annual J.D. Power and Associates "2008 Credit Card Satisfaction Study" found that American Express scored 783 on a 1,000-point scale and Discover scored 751. The research also discovered that 72% of all cardholders participate in some type of reward program. Cash rewards are the most common type of reward redeemed and the second-most satisfying type of reward. Hotel stays are the most satisfying type of reward. 

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Nortel announced that it is expanding its unified communications portfolio to provide for the Web 2.0 world. Nortel says that their Interactive Communications Portal (ICP) includes features such as IM, email and click-to-call that can be added to self-service and speech applications to expand service options beyond menu-driven interactive voice response (IVR). The software-only solution is built on Nortel's Media Application Server, a multimedia-processing platform that provides extensive support for conferencing, messaging, and interactive voice/video response features.

Instant messaging (IM) can be a powerful productivity tool. A 2007 IM study from Gartner predicted that “by the end of 2011, IM will be the de facto tool for voice, video, and text chat, with 95 percent of workers in leading global organizations using it as their primary interface for real-time communications by 2013.” However for credit union IT Departments there are a number of risks and pain points associated with deploying and managing IM solutions. We will talk about them and some potential solutions in the October issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.

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Five9 offers a call center portfolio that includes solutions that are feature-rich and affordable. The company successfully supports distributed agents around the world and claims that within 72 hours, agents can be provisioned, trained and up and running. The company’s Virtual Call Center provides a common, unifying platform for agents regardless of geographic location. Offered as an on-demand service, Five9 says that its system delivers results without capital costs, expensive infrastructure or leased phone lines.

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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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