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February 1, 2010 - February 5, 2010
General News
* Corillian Online from Fiserv Integrates Online Banking, Payments & PFM
* Select ECU Selects Bradford-Scott
* Communication FCU Launches uMonitor’s Online Account Opening & Funding Service
* Open Solutions and ISS Announce Alliance Partnership
Fiserv, a leading global provider of financial services technology solutions, announced the launch of a licensed version of Corillian Online featuring an enhanced user interface and integrated personal financial management tools. The new user interface combines 90 percent of the most commonly used
online banking functionalities - account balances, transfers, electronic bills and payments - onto a single screen for easy access.
Bradford-Scott Data, currently supporting more than 160 credit unions in 15 states, announced that it has been selected by Select Employees Credit Union to replace their current core solution. Select ECU is located in Sterling, IL and has 4,500 members with $25 million in assets.
uMonitor, an innovative financial solution services provider for member acquisition and retention, announced that Oklahoma City-based Communication Federal Credit Union has launched uMonitor’s account opening and funding solution, uOpen & uFund. The credit union leveraged uMonitor’s reseller arrangement with Equifax to bundle Equifax Secure's elDverifier, a remote authentication service, with the online account opening and funding service.
Open Solutions, a leading provider of integrated enabling technologies for credit unions throughout the United States, Canada and other international markets, has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Richardson, Texas-based Innovative Support Solutions (ISS), by which ISS will supply its Informant fraud detection solution to Open Solutions’ core clients. The two companies have completed a commercialization process that enabled integration of Informant with Open Solutions’ core platform, known as DNA.
Hardware News
IBM announced that the company’s Power7 chip, which is expected to give two to three times the processing power with the same energy consumption, will begin shipping by the end of the first quarter of 2010. Although the best of the new processors will outperform anything made by competitors Intel and AMD, x64 chips from those companies are expected to be comparable in performance to the lower end chips in the Power7 line. The new offerings from IBM are manufactured using a 45 nanometer process and come with four, six, or eight cores.
LaCie has just unveiled three new external hard drives in the brand-new Enterprise Class line: d2 Quadra Enterprise Class, 2big Quadra Enterprise Class and the 4big Quadra Enterprise Class. All three drives include:
- Capacities range from 1 TB to 8 TB
- Internal SATA Enterprise Class disks
- 7200 RPM
- 32 MB of cache memory
- More than 700MB/s of transfer speeds
- 128-bit AES hardware encryption
- A five-year warranty
- 5-year advance product replacement plan
The drives sell at $299 for the d2 Quadra Enterprise Class, $649 for the 2big, and $1,349 for the 4big.
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Hardware Section Sponsored by
Millennial Vision, Inc. (MVi)
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Software Updates
Equifax announced the availability of a suite of “ability-to-pay” assessment tools to help credit card issuers comply with the amendments to Regulation Z of the Credit Card Act that go into effect February 22, 2010. Equifax’s ability-to-pay solutions include verified as well as modeled personal and household income and wealth information that were built using actual wealth and income data provided through Equifax’s IXI and TALX businesses. Equifax’s data sets can be distributed real-time online or batch-delivered offline to help issuers assess a consumer’s ability-to-pay throughout the customer life cycle, including: batch and instant prescreen, invitation to apply, new account underwriting, and line management review.
Many credit unions have more spreadsheets than they are aware of. Reporting which are active and how frequently they are changing can be difficult when they are spread across user workstations and multiple file servers - and with no central control because they are used by different groups and departments. Based on the Spreadsheet Discovery module of the ComplyXL Enterprise suite, the Spreadsheet Usage Monitor is available as a free tool so that credit unions can start the process of controlling and managing corporate spreadsheets.
Many credit unions pay too much for Windows, Office, and other Microsoft products. They buy software off retail shelves or online, one-at-a-time, and miss significant discounts that are available to almost every organization. If your credit union uses more than four Microsoft products, we will tell you about various discount programs available to you in the March issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.
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Software Updates Sponsored by
Raddon Financial Group (RFG)
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ATMs/Kiosks
According to Wincor Nixdorf, one-third of a financial institution’s costs come from managing cash. They note that cash continues to be the number one payment medium - nine of ten payment transactions worldwide are made with cash. With its new Cash Cycle Management portfolio, Wincor Nixdorf aims to automate cash handling processes at financial institutions as completely as possible, ensure closed cash cycles and shorten the cash logistics chain. They hope to achieve this by getting credit unions to deploy a uniform banknote storage concept that enables the exchange of storage media between devices from their new hardware family, CINEO. A memory chip in the storage unit stores information that is available at any time on both the level of cash inside and where and when the unit was used or opened. As a result, cash deposited at a branch's counter and stored in intelligent storage units in an automated teller safe can be dispensed again at an ATM.
CO-OP Financial Services has extended its electronic funds transfer (EFT) network access agreement with First Data’s STAR Network. CO-OP Financial Services provides STAR Network access to more than 600 credit union members and counts STAR among its preferred EFT networks. CO-OP Financial Services also uses First Data for processing services for reloadable prepaid cards that it offers to its members.
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Vendor Case Studies
Here is a chance to learn about real life credit union case studies from various technology vendors through the words of their clients. This week's vendor is:
Adapt Telephony Services
and their client is:
Chicago Patrolmen's Federal Credit Union
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
MasterCard reports that more than 66 million PayPass cards had been issued globally at the end of 2009's third quarter, a 50 percent gain from a year earlier. Some observers note that U.S. merchants are keen to deploy contactless payment technology, but consumers' readiness to pay is much lower in the United States compared to other parts of the world. Meanwhile, some in the industry blame the low contactless transaction volume on a low-key marketing strategy - they argue that there is little to no marketing by issuers in most parts of the country, and as a result, there is little usage.
QGen, an outsourced KYC verification provider, has launched a new document submission service via Multimedia Message Service (MMS). The MMS service allows applicants to take a photograph of the required documentation and submit it to QGen for instant verification by QGen's team of fraud analysts. Customers receive an instant SMS acknowledgement once the document has been received and another SMS and email once the documents have been verified. If any of the documents are of insufficient quality, an agent contacts the customer about resubmission.
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Security Section
According to a new report from privacy and data security research firm Ponemon Institute, the cost of data breaches is $204 per compromised customer record, and breaches resulting from computer hacking incurred by far the highest losses. Some 24% of breaches in 2009 were caused by placement of malware or botnets or related attacks on computer systems, double the 12% rate for such attacks in 2008. Forty percent of 2009’s breaches resulted from negligence, and 36% come from system glitches, according to the “2009 Annual Study: Cost of a Data Breach.”
New PCI rules are cracking down on call centers that handle card data. Call centers asking for card details over the phone must now dispose of those recordings, or at least the parts that store the prohibited data, immediately because PCI rules treat a digital audio capture exactly the same as if it was written. The PCI ruling that such data cannot be retained can be accomplished three different ways: not recording such calls; transferring the caller to another system for the card data to be shared; and splitting the recording into sensitive and not-so-sensitive portions.
Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployments are becoming more popular not only for the cost savings that they offer, but due to the fact that can significantly help with security and compliance efforts. VDI calls for a virtual security center which we will explain in the March issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe today.
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Security Section Sponsored by
William Rogers & Associates
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CU InfoSecurity Conference
The CU InfoSecurity Conference is the original and premier conference dedicated solely to credit union security. Here are just some of the topics that will be covered in this two and one half day security summit:
Social Networking
Phishing & Malware
Vendor Management
Virtualization Security
Security Best Practices
Controlling Admin Rights
Protecting Online Banking
Website Risk Management
Member Security Education
Controlling Employee Access
All paid attendees receive 2 complimentary room nights at a 5 star resort as part of the low conference price - the only conference in the credit union movement that makes this generous offer!
Plus multiple attendees from the same credit union attend at no charge!
More Info & Register Now ~ 800.808.2188
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Leaders Roundtable
Security:
Managing Risk and Security Efficiently and Affordably
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Technology and Marketing
Marketing Software Solutions announced the U.S. release of FLEX, an online content management program incorporating form generation and e-signature tools designed for credit unions. FLEX allows for personalized delivery of sales and marketing material and products, based on client-driven process rules and individual member profiles and combines this ability with e-signature and online execution. Member/channel behavior is monitored in real time and campaign messages are tailored and adjusted automatically in response to member interest.
SEMPartners and CUNA have formed a partnership to market new 3-D video technology for advocacy and product messaging on credit union websites. The “pop-up” video service is called CU-VO and can be purchased off the shelf or customized with costs ranging anywhere from $500-$1,000 depending on what is included.
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Technology & Marketing Section Sponsored by
MARQUIS Software Solutions
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Contact John Kassing @ johnk@gomarquis.com to learn more.
GoMarquis.com ~ 800.365.4274
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Online Banking/E-Commerce/Website Design
A report released by Forrester Consulting finds that 75% of online financial services consumers expect 99% or higher website availability. In fact, website performance is second only to security in user expectations. More than half of online banking users (56%) expect web pages to load in two seconds or less, which is significantly more than the 47% of consumers who just shop online. Website performance ranks above even functions like single sign-on or ease of use. The ultimate effect of poor performance is a decrease in willingness to recommend a firm with 48% of online banking users stating that poor performance "impacted" or "significantly impacted" their likeliness to recommend a firm's services to a friend or family member.
As cybercriminals become more sophisticated in their attack methods, multi-factor authentication must keep up. One company has just launched a “triple authentication” product that they say is low cost and very effective. We will cover it in the March issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe today.
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Online Banking Section Sponsored by
Code Green
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Credit Union tech-talk readers receive a 10% discount!
Sign up today: http://www.codegreen.org/cuwebhunt
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Internet Access
Verizon is now offering their VoIP Inbound with Local Originations service which provides a local phone number with call manager functionality traditionally used for toll free phone numbers. Verizon says that this service is a cost efficient alternative to remote call forwarding, and integrates with Verizon IP Interactive Voice Response (IVR) offerings and can deliver calls to either traditional or IP-based contact centers.
Asterisk released a new version of Switchvox designed for small to midsize businesses (SMB) with its Switchvox SMB 4.5. Based on Digium's Asterisk, the SMB version integrates a Web interface with UC features such as fax, chat and video calling - along with extending interoperability to Polycom phone handsets so features that were previously only available through the Web interface can now use phone handset displays.
F5 Networks has added a new member to its Big-IP application delivery family that combines SSL VPN security with existing access control and WAN optimization, enabling organizations to eliminate VPN gateways. F5 says that with their Big-IP Edge Gateway, individual computers can connect to corporate networks securely and at the same time have the protected traffic optimized to account for network conditions, protocol inefficiencies and application chattiness. The new Big-IP combines the SSL VPN functionality of F5's Firepass appliances, and makes it possible for organizations to eliminate one appliance - SSL VPN gateway - at the edge of their networks. The base listing price for Edge Gateway 1600 is $17,995, supporting 300 users.
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Call Centers
Call center supervisors use various formulas for measuring call quality - some start with a score of 0 and add, while others start the assessment with a score of 100% and reduce scores as elements are missed. Proponents of the first approach believe that this method of measuring skills, knowledge and behavior more positively positions QA monitoring as a developmental/learning experience. They think that starting with 100% score and then deducting for errors sends the message to staff that quality monitoring is a "punitive" exercise. Others prefer the 100% starting method because it gives agents the expectation that they will successfully cover all of the important quality components right from the start.
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Call Centers Sponsored by
Telecom Recovery
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Inbound Telecom Disaster Recovery
Nothing is more important than serving your members. Telecom Recovery, which protects the communications for dozens of credit unions across the US, has a very powerful - and low cost - technology that protects your inbound calls during any kind of outage including:
• equipment failure
• carrier failure
• network congestion
• line-cuts
• disaster
• pandemic (employees forced to work remotely)
• complete evacuation
• and more…
During any of these events your members' calls would still ring to the right people - with just a few clicks on the mouse to re-route all incoming calls and faxes.
All we need is 5 minutes of your valuable time to discuss whether there’s enough of a fit to arrange a brief Web demonstration at a later date.
Sign up now for a 5 minute consultation.
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Conferences
Catch Tom and Bill Rogers, Associate Editor of Credit Union tech-talk at the following conferences in 2009:
February 21-25, Washington - CUNA Governmental Affairs Conference
March 8, Washington - MACUMA Seminar
May 19-21, Las Vegas - Credit Union InfoSecurity Conference
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