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August 9, 2010 - August 13, 2010
General News
* AnyHour Solutions Releases White Paper on Collaborative Contact Center
* CU*Answers Expands to West Virginia
* Consumers Credit Union Selects Acumen from Fiserv
* CSCU Partners with MShift
* DocuSign and MeridianLink Working Together
AnyHour Solutions, a provider of complete collaborative contact center services for credit unions since 1994, announced the release of their first White Paper in a series of upcoming informative White Papers entitled "What is The Collaborative Contact Center?" The White Paper is designed to help credit unions better understand their contact center outsourcing options and what they should look for in a contact center partner should they choose to outsource all or part of their contact center operations.
CU*Answers recently announced that they will be providing core processing services for its first West Virginia-based credit union. WV United FCU of Charleston, WV will be upgrading to the CU*BASE core data processing system during the fourth quarter of 2010.
Fiserv, a leading global provider of financial services technology solutions, announced that Consumers Credit Union of Waukegan, IL has chosen to implement their Acumen account processing solution. Acumen will be implemented in-house at Consumers Credit Union, which also selected the Fiserv solutions LynxGate, for switch gateway processing, and Nautilus, for enterprise content management.
Card Services for Credit Unions (CSCU) has expanded its portfolio of electronic payment products to include mobile banking, through a partnership with MShift. CSCU has partnered with MShift, leveraging their exclusive patented technology to bring more than 3,000 member credit unions a solution that is carrier and content agnostic.
DocuSign, a leading provider of electronic signature software, announced a partnership with MerdianLink, a leading application service provider for credit unions. Under the agreement, MerdianLink’s web-based consumer loan origination and account opening platform (LoansPQ and Xpress Accounts) will include the DocuSign electronic signature management service.
Hardware News
The Lantronix SpiderDuo KVM (keyboard video mouse) device features remote media mounting, remote power reset, and fast screen refreshes. It also comes with support for advanced authentication (LDAP, RADIUS, Active Directory), and a pass-through port for local console access. The unit starts at $385 and can support as many as eight remote users without a dedicated KVM server.
Like all hardware, data center fire suppression technology is getting more sophisticated and less expensive. We will cover the latest trends in fire suppression in the September issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe today.
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Hardware Section Sponsored by
Millennial Vision, Inc. (MVi)
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Software Updates
A research firm has come out with a report that states that Citrix's XenDesktop 4.1 is the only product that fully satisfies all the criteria for enterprise-class desktop virtualization solutions. The Burton Group says that Citrix had met all of the 52 criteria that they consider to be absolutely necessary in products designed to allow organizations to host end-user desktops on data-center servers rather than physical PCs. The list includes functions such as the ability to create several levels of administrator, each with a different set of privileges to make managing large-scale VDI networks more efficient; the ability to record and audit administrative changes to satisfy regulatory compliance reporting requirements; and at least three years of support for all the products involved in a VDI rollout.
Pancetera Software, founded two years ago, unveiled its first product, Pancetera Unite, a virtual appliance that can manage backups across a virtual server environment, relieving sysadmins of the chore of deploying backup agents on virtual machines (VMs). Pancetera Unite runs on a VM and creates backup export mount points along with a single management view of a virtual server backup environment. It runs regardless of the backend storage type, be it network-attached storage (NAS) or a storage area network (SAN). Pancetera Unite includes several features, such as SmartView, which provides a single, unified view of all virtual storage across hypervisors and data storage. The tool allows sysadmins to browse, move and copy VM files in a Windows explorer view.
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Software Updates Sponsored by
Raddon Financial Group (RFG)
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ATMs/Kiosks
Wincor Nixdorf announced it has shipped its 10,000th CCDM ATM in the United States. The German manufacturer states that this milestone illustrates the increasing adoption of ATMs that accept bulk deposits of check and cash. The CCDM module, which was the first of its kind when launched in November 2002, features a single input that accepts both cash and checks in bulk form through one single input.
Last week we covered security researcher Barnaby Jack's successful "jackpotting" of ATMs. In response, the ATM Industry Association (ATMIA) responded with a press release that expressed its confidence in the industry’s software and other critical systems, which are subject to robust governance, standards and industry best practices. “This type of research conducted by professionals like Jack should be leveraged by our industry to improve ATM security,” said Mike Lee, CEO of ATMIA. “ATM security is one of the most technically challenging areas of a financial institution’s operation,” Lee stated. “To ensure the most effective protection against a variety of threats – including internal, external, physical and logical threats – the industry advises financial institutions to implement and maintain a comprehensive, multi-layered security approach. In addition, ATM security programs should be regularly monitored, reviewed and updated to anticipate and mitigate changing threats.”
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CU Success Stories
Here is a chance to learn about real life credit union success stories from various technology vendors through the words of their clients. This week's vendor is:
uMonitor
and their client is:
BECU
Credit Unions - if you have a vendor that you are happy with then please let us know!
Vendors - if you have a credit union that is happy with your solutions then please let us know and we will give you a $100 discount on your Case Study!
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Wireless World
AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are partnering with Discover for a new mobile payments scheme that will bypass Visa and Mastercard. The new payment service would use contactless technology to complete purchases in stores. Payments would be processed through Discover’s network, currently the fourth-biggest behind Visa, MasterCard and American Express, while Barclays would help manage the accounts.
Security experts are warning that if smartphones can act as credit cards, then users are going to have to start protecting their devices accordingly. They say that smartphone credit card users are going to have to install some form of remote-wipe application that will let them erase any and all data on their smartphone if they ever lose it. Additionally, users will not only have to take care in the types of apps they download onto their phones but also install antivirus, antimalware and firewall programs onto their devices. Some observers believe that Google will have to start taking more of a direct role in ensuring that applications on their store are safe, particularly in an era when more people will be using Android-based devices as personal credit cards.
One large research firm has come out with a report that states that mobile devices can be used as a viable security layer in the financial transaction chain. We will describe how they think that this could play out at the ATM and point of sale in the September issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.
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Security Section
Over time, firewall rule bases tend to become large and complicated. Firewall audit tools help admins find configuration errors, avoid conflicting rules, identify vulnerabilities and meet auditing and compliance mandates. Whether or not you use a firewall management tool, here are some best practices:
* Delete fully shadowed rules that are effectively useless, as well as duplicate objects.
* Delete expired and unused rules and objects.
* Remove unused connections, including specific source/destination/service routes that are not in use.
* Enforce object naming conventions that make the rule base easy to understand.
* Delete old and unused policies.
* Break up long rule sections into readable sizes.
* Document rules, objects and policy revisions for future reference.
Every security expert agrees that social engineering is a very effective tool. The Social Engineering Tookit (SET) gives penetration testers a streamlined way to perform social engineering attacks using exploits available in the Metasploit Framework. The new 0.6 release of SET includes many new features and provides three major attack vectors, including spear-phishing, Web attacks through site-cloning, and malicious USB/DVD/CDs, along with the brand new Arduino-based Teensy USB HID device.
Log management systems help in analyzing network security events for intrusion detection and forensics, plus logging is valuable for systems and application management reasons. Regardless of the purpose behind logging, the log management process has several distinct phases which we will describe in the September issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe today.
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Security Section Sponsored by
TruShield Security Solutions
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TruShield Security Solutions was founded by CU IT Executives for CU IT Executives.
Contact us today to see how we can help affordably secure your CU:
703 879 2979
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Leaders Roundtable
Online & Mobile Banking:
Driving Member Growth
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Technology and Marketing
On-premise and online CRM solutions developer, Surado Solutions, announced that the Surado CRM Online Professional Edition is now available with project management features as part of the standard configuration. With Surado CRM Project Management, users gain the ability to create and manage projects, tasks, sub-tasks and associated activities. Users will also be able to assign and track resources, budgets, status, project timelines, project manager and more. The Surado Project Management solution is part of the core product line and will automatically link projects to individuals and vice versa.
Belvoir Federal Credit Union has been running a successful campaign that focuses on bringing in new auto and personal loans. Dubbed Instant Cash Back, the program offers members an instant 1% cash back of the entire loan amount at the time the loan is dispersed. To date, the program has paid out $85,000. As part of the promotion members have been encouraged to share what they did with their 1% cash back with the credit union.
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Technology & Marketing Section Sponsored by
MARQUIS Software Solutions
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Contact Information:
John Kassing johnk@gomarquis.com gomarquis.com 800-365-4274
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Online Banking/E-Commerce/Website Design
RightCliq, which Visa unveiled in March and just launched, represents one of the card network’s most ambitious thrusts in e-commerce. A plug-in that allows consumers to store payment card details in an e-wallet, RightCliq enables automated form-filling on checkout pages, serves up discounts and other offers from select merchants, and lets shoppers seek feedback from friends on items they’re considering for purchase. Users can load details for cards from Visa competitors as well as prepaid cards and store-issued cards. They can also store products in a ‘Wishspace,’ making it easier to comparison shop. Generating more volume for its network is Visa’s objective with the new service.
The US Federal Reserve has reported its latest G.19 Consumer Credit statistics - finding that: "Consumer credit decreased at an annual rate of 3.75 percent in the second quarter. Revolving credit decreased at an annual rate of 9.5 percent, and non-revolving credit was about unchanged. In June, consumer credit decreased at an annual rate of .75 percent, revolving credit decreased at an annual rate of 6.5 percent, and non-revolving credit increased at an annual rate of 2.5 percent."
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Internet Access
Mushroom Networks' Truffle Broadband Bonding Network Appliance creates one fast connection out of up to six separate lines, a technique known as bonding. The Truffle combines the bandwidth of all available broadband lines into one giant pipe, with download speeds of up to 50Mbit/sec., the company says. Internet access may be through a DSL modem, cable modem, T1 line or just about any broadband connection. This helps increase overall throughput, and acts as a backup mechanism, too. If one of the "bonded" lines fails, the Truffle connection just keeps running with the other available lines.
Before installing a VoIP phone system, you will need to make sure that your Internet connection and network infrastructure can handle VoIP. One quick way of calculating the total bandwidth needed to send and receive your calls is to multiply the number of anticipated simultaneous calls times the packet size of the voice codec you will be using (like G.722 or G.729). Plus there are bandwidth calculators online that can help you with this such as Scrutinizer NetFlow Analyzer.
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Call Centers
Webtorials recently released some survey results about user requirements for contact center deployments. Among their key findings: contact center professionals expect the next two years to bring strong growth in non-voice interaction vectors with e-mail, Web self-service, and Web chat expected to lead the way. While 14% of voice agents also "extensively" handle multimedia communications today, that percentage is expected to grow to 22% of agents in two years who will extensively also offer e-mail, Web service, Web chat, SMS, IM and social media communications to consumers.
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Conferences
Catch Tom and Bill Rogers, Associate Editor of Credit Union tech-talk at these upcoming conferences:
October 3-6, San Antonio - Firefighters National Credit Union Summit
October 28, St. Louis - Green IT Summit: Risk Management & Cloud Computing
November 4-6, Phoenix - Credit Union InfoTECH
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