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Credit Union tech-talk News
April 13, 2009 - April 17, 2009
General News
* Syphr Demos RateMatch at Upcoming Finovate ’09 Conference
* ACI Worldwide Finds Success with Online Banking Solution
* Bluepoint Solutions Launches Consumer RDC Solution
* 90octane Signs Mountain America CU
Syphr, a New York-based marketing CUSO, announced today that it will be officially launching and displaying its online RateMatch lead generation tool (via credit report outlets) to nearly 300 executives, entrepreneurs, and industry experts at the upcoming FinovateStartUp09 conference in San Francisco on April 28. Syphr will be among nearly 60 other companies displaying at the show.
ACI Worldwide, a leading international provider of electronic payments software and solutions, announced the ongoing success of its online banking solution, ACI Enterprise Banker. ACI has seen significant interest from existing North American customers with more than 70 investing in additional capacity, or migrating to the latest version, Enterprise Banker 7.4.
Bluepoint Solutions, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and leading provider of remote deposit capture (RDC), image-based item processing and electronic document management software technology for credit unions, announced the availability of its RDC Consumer product. Bluepoint’s solution provides credit union members with the ability to conveniently deposit checks from any location at any time.
Mountain America Credit Union, one of the biggest credit unions in the country with $2.7 billion in assets and 320,000 members, announced it has deployed 90octane’s search engine for its website. Denver-based 90octane said that they will be able to optimize Mountain America's website for terms relevant to its brand and key services, while increasing search engine visibility and driving qualified traffic. Strategic recommendations are based on analysis of the website's code, copy, architecture and design, as well as an assessment of target audiences, business goals and the competitive environment.
Hardware News
Epson announced the 90 DPM version of its CaptureOne desktop check scanner. Its features include a fast 90 DPM scan rate, high MICR accuracy and a high-quality imager. Epson says that the new unit is designed for branch back counter check processing, commercial accounts windows and high-volume Remote Deposit Capture (RDC) applications. They also launched the Perfection V30 flatbed check and document scanner and the WorkForce 500 All-in-One Scanner with print, copy, fax and photo capabilities.
DIGITUS says that their IP55 server cabinets offer protection against sprayed water from any angle and the collection of dust. The server cabinet is sealed on all sides according to protection type IP55. The glass safety door has a lockable swivel lever lock including a 3 point locking system. The network cabinet is accessible from four sides thanks to removable doors and side walls, although the steel back door is lockable. The cable guide is in the center of the floor and covered by a sliding panel with a rubber seal.
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Software Updates
GlassHouse Technologies wants to help smaller organizations looking to get into virtualization by offering them a monthly subscription to a monitoring tool, with consulting built into the contract. GlassHouse's tool monitors, manages, and reports on a company's virtualization infrastructure. The tool's output is interpreted and watched by virtualization experts. These experts advise companies and when technical problems arise, the users have someone to call who is familiar with their virtual infrastructure.
The current economic climate is pushing many IT Departments to look for free tools that can help them slash costs and sustain IT services. We will tell you about some freeware and open source applications that may be useful to your credit union in the May issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe today.
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Software Section Sponsored by
Raddon Financial Group (RFG)
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ATMs/Kiosks
NCR announced that more than 10,000 of its no-envelope, “intelligent deposit” ATMs are in deployment, helping consumers deposit cash and checks faster and easier. In 2008, more than 70 percent of NCR’s U.S. SelfServ ATM shipments featured intelligent deposit. NCR also announced that they have sold more than 50,000 licenses of Solidcore for APTRA, an ATM software security solution that prohibits the introduction of unauthorized code to an ATM.
NCR wasn't the only ATM manufacturer touting their successes recently. Nautilus Hyosung, the parent of Nautilus Hyosung America Inc., said that in 2008 that it shipped more than 29,000 ATMs globally. The company also strengthened its market share in North America by supplying over 20,000 ATMs, topping its 2007 figure of 14,000 units.
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ATMs/Kiosks Section Sponsored by
Code Green
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Sign up today: http://branchmap.com/cunews.html
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Biometric Digest Highlights - WWW.BIODIGEST.COM
The Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC) announced the launch of an initiative aimed at enabling the financial services industry to gain a better understanding of how biometric technologies can be used to combat fraud across all delivery channels. The FSTC says the program will endeavor to develop a methodology for financial institutions to better select, specify, evaluate and deploy biometric applications with greater consumer acceptance.
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Wireless World
KPMG has announced the results of a survey of U.S. consumers finding that they "believe mobile banking is important but do not want to pay for it and also are wary of using their mobile devices such as cell phones, smartphones, and personal digital assistants (PDAs) for financial transactions and online banking." Some 68% of U.S. respondents also said that their current FI does not offer banking through a mobile device and only 9% said they had tried mobile banking. KPMG concludes that FIs "that address concerns over security, privacy, and costs may be better able to retain existing customers and attract new ones."
Visa announced the launch of what it is calling "the world’s first commercial Visa mobile payments service for point-of-sale transactions using Near Field Communications (NFC) technology. The service marks the first time consumers can purchase an NFC-enabled mobile device off the shelf and use that device to make Visa payWave-enabled transactions at the point-of-sale instead of using their payment card." The new service is being launched first in Malaysia.
What are the main considerations for consumers to use mobile devices to conduct banking functions? We will cover one research firm's surprising conclusions in the May issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.
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Security Section
Trend Micro announced its WorryFree Hosted service for small offices, a cloud-based scanning service for Windows-based desktop machines (priced at about $33 per desktop for up to 25 users). It is offered as an alternative to Trend's traditional anti-malware software package. The cloud-based service can provide some advantages over buying Trend Micro's traditional consumer software because the service delivers a Web-based administrative view, the vendor says. An administrator for a small group can see the status of machines and gauge security levels through dashboard indicators, including green for clear, yellow for something suspicious occurring in the network and red when there's a definite problem.
Unified threat management (UTM) appliances have multiple features and capabilities, including intrusion detection and prevention, gateway anti-virus, e-mail filtering and Web content filtering, as well as the traditional functions of a firewall, integrated into one product offering. Some of the newer developments in UTM include centralized management using graphical interfaces, enabling network wide changes for licensing and upgrades, and network features such as the ability to monitor latency and throughput, HTTPS Proxy Filtering, and automated event correlation and network logging.
Some email programs and appliances are currently using behavioral data, collected via Internet traffic monitoring networks, to derive reputation scores for domains, IP addresses, messages and URLs. Now reputational scoring techniques are starting to be more commonly applied to firewalls and other perimeter devices. We will cover this trend in the May issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.
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Leaders Roundtable
Security:
Protecting Member Data at Rest and in Motion
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Technology and Marketing
Varicent Software, which sells incentive compensation and sales performance management products, has added an application to Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Varicent says that their product arises from the need for Microsoft Dynamics CRM being extended to sales performance, and "providing a single product that addresses the needs of various departments across the organization by gaining visibility into actual and potential commissions through enhanced sales reporting, analysis, modeling and forecasting available within this integrated offering."
California-based Travis Credit Union (TCU) is using YouTube to reach out to their members. The credit union offered a $500 prize for the best video "that depicts what you enjoy doing, and how Travis Credit Union has helped you do it." In addition to YouTube, the winning entrant was posted to the credit union's TCU-Tube site, which also features instructional videos on various financial products and services.
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Online Banking/E-Commerce/Website Design
Fidelity National Information Services is teaming with Western Union and Yodlee for an integrated online expedited payments solution for credit unions. The plan is to incorporate Yodlee's proprietary same-day payments capabilities and Western Union's expansive payment and biller network into FIS Bill Pay. The solution enables interchange revenue-generating credit and debit card-based electronic bill payments for more than 400 top billers.
According to TowerGroup, Internet-only banks stand to prosper in this troubled economy, and traditional branch traffic will stagnate. The research firm predicts that the amount of money deposited with direct banks will double by 2012 - $350 billion in deposits will be held by direct banks by 2012, up from $160 billion last year. They also believe that online account openings are set to jump: last year 83% of checking accounts were opened in the branch, but by 2012, they think that will drop to 67%; meanwhile those opened through call centers will grow modestly, from 11 percent to 16 percent.
Arizona State Credit Union has launched a social media site where people hit by the recession can share information and advice. The HelpingAZ.com site is designed as a place where people can share leads for current job openings, as well as find links to beneficial resources based on visitor postings. Other tools include up-to-date state budget information, unemployment benefit details, money saving tips and financial assistance, all developed by active online community participants.
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Internet Access
Critical Links has released edgeBOX SoHo for small businesses of up to 10 users. The firm says that the edgeBOX SoHo will replace up to six distinct products at a small business which will help to simplify the voice/data infrastructure. Features include VoIP/IP-PBX, security firewall/VPN, and email, web and print server features. Routing with quality of service (QoS), file back up and WiFi access point are also available. It is also possible to deploy value-added edgePACKs that provide collaboration tools and content management on the appliance.
QubeConnect has introduced the QubeTalk Five IP-PBX designed for the small office environment. The main feature of the solution is the IVR Auto Attendant that receives all incoming calls and directs them to an employee according to pre-programmed priorities and skill functions required by the caller. In case the assigned person is not available, the IVR AA redirects instantly to the next assigned employee and so forth until the call is answered.
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Call Centers
Many CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) solutions feature an 'estimated time in queue' feature to inform callers how long they have to queue, e.g., "thanks for continuing to hold, your call will be answered in approximately 2 minutes." These so-called visible queues that inform callers of their EWT (estimated wait time) at the outset have much to recommend them. That is because many surveys have shown that invisible queues (those where the caller does not know EWT) result in high abandon rates and caller frustration. Caller frustration in turn affects talk time because callers spend extra time complaining about the wait, plus employees' morale is hurt when they have to deal with irate callers.
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Conferences
Catch Tom and Bill Rogers, Associate Editor of Credit Union tech-talk at the following conferences in 2008:
June 4-5, Lake Las Vegas - Credit Union InfoSecurity Conference
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