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Credit Union tech-talk News
February 16, 2009 - February 20, 2009
General News
* Eeminder Rolls Out eNotices
* QuintEssential CU Selects Open Solutions
* Valero FCU Implements MVi's Document Management Solution
* Harland Financial Solutions Selects CUBUS Solutions as Strategic Partner
* Jax Metro CU Selects Share One
Eeminder, a provider of mobile banking software to credit unions, has developed an end-to-end eNotice solution which is backward compatible to existing Open Solutions and Summit installations. It covers sending and receiving of email or interactive sms text notices and alerts, FFIEC compliant multifactor authentication, and algorithms to suppress the printing of paper notices for members who elect to receive eNotices.
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 QuintEssential Credit Union, based in Belleville, Ontario, has selected Open Solutions’ relational core processing system The Complete Credit Union Solution: DNA. QuintEssential is a community-based credit union that has assets of $78 million and serves 8,350 members. The credit union will also implement Open Solutions’ Financial Accounting Suite and Asset/Liability Management products, as well as the integrated voice response solution.
In an effort to streamline its loan processing operations and ultimately become a paperless organization, Valero Federal Credit Union ($139 million; 10,040 members; San Antonio, TX) has signed with Millennial Vision Inc. (MVi), a national reseller of Laserfiche document management solutions. Valero FCU will implement MVi's Document Management solution to achieve its goal of providing members and staff with more efficient loan processing and virtually eliminate the use of paper in-house.
CUBUS Solutions announced that Harland Financial Solutions has selected CUBUS Solutions' CUNotify, CUDeposits, CUPoints and CULoyalty software applications as its choice for delivering electronic notifications, remote consumer check deposits, and loyalty rewards solutions to its UltraData core processing customers.
Share One, a CUSO with a client base of credit unions to $1 billion, announced that Jax Metro Credit Union of Jacksonville, FL has selected their NewSolutions platform for their core processing needs. The credit union has four locations in Jacksonville servicing all employees and their families for the City of Jacksonville, Air & Sea Ports, JEA, and select zip codes.
Hardware News
Iomega has expanded its lineup of network storage with a four-bay solution - the StorCenter Pro ix4-100 is offered with 2TB or 4TB of storage included. The ix4-100 has advanced features like RAID Level 5 and 10 capabilities, virtual environment support, and the ability to capture real-time video from up to three surveillance cams. The 2TB StorCenter Pro ix4-100 runs $799.95.
Hewlett-Packard has warned owners of some of its laser printers to update their devices' firmware or risk having remote attackers access previously printed documents. HP said users of certain LaserJet, Color LaserJet and Digital Sender models are affected, and it urged them to immediately download and install firmware upgrades. The devices include 10 LaserJet models, ranging from the 2410 to the 9050; two Color LaserJet models; and the 9200C Digital Sender, a sheet-fed document scanner. Other than patching, the only other defense measure available is to disable access to the printers' online control interface.
Solid-state disks (SSD) are rapidly gaining popularity for their speed and energy efficiency, but they also support a feature dubbed 'fast erase'. We will tell you about this feature in the March issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.
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Software Updates
The Trusted Computing Group, made up of disk hardware and software vendors, just published three encryption specifications to cover storage devices in consumer laptops and desktop computers as well as enterprise-class drives used in servers and disk storage arrays. Some analysts are convinced that in the next few years that all disk drive manufacturers will be offering drives that use these specifications for firmware-based encryption. With the current standard, however, if a user loses their password and a drive becomes damaged or corrupted, the data is not recoverable. However, the current disk encryption specifications allow administrators to create more than one password to access data, so that if a user were to lose one, they could still access the employee's hard drive with the backup password.
Parascript, an image analysis and pattern recognition technology provider, announced CheckUltra which they say is a next-generation check recognition solution that offers a dramatic rise in courtesy (CAR) and legal amount recognition (LAR) rates and a significant reduction in labor and errors associated with check processing. They claim that CheckUltra offers the industry’s highest courtesy and legal amount recognition rates of up to 10 percent higher than other products on the market, and that the MICR line recognition results are at least on par with, if not higher than, the results of magnetic readers.
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Software Section Sponsored by
Raddon Financial Group (RFG)
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ATMs/Kiosks
While NCR expects their revenue to drop this year between 2 percent and 6 percent from 2008's totals, the Dayton, OH-based company remains upbeat. The company announced it had regained the No. 1 ATM sales position in North America, and touted the fact that they launched more than 50 new products in 2008 despite a difficult economic environment.
ATMs that do check imaging are gaining in popularity but servicing these machines can be challenging. One credit union in California tackled this issue and we will cover how they did in the March issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.
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Biometric Digest Highlights - WWW.BIODIGEST.COM
MetaPass is touting their virtualization-based, universal single sign-on (SSO) solution as a next generation Enterprise SSO system that integrates universally with any and all target applications. They say that it also connects without any infrastructure change to any LDAP directory or any SPML-compliant provisioning system. Additionally, SSO by its very nature lends itself to other strong authentication device such as smart cards, and particularly fingerprint biometrics.
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Wireless World
Qualcomm announced that they have added support for Near Field Communication (NFC) technology to certain chipsets in its product portfolio. Qualcomm hopes to accelerate the commercial availability of mobile handsets featuring the short-range technology and is engaged with leading NFC solutions providers to develop reference designs based on the company's Mobile Station Modem chipsets. NFC is a short-range wireless connectivity technology operating at 13.56 MHz and transferring data at up to 424 Kbps. NFC technology is well suited for payment, mass transit, ticketing and other similar applications requiring a quick and secure contactless exchange of data between devices that are in close proximity to each other.
In a related story, Gemalto and INSIDE Contactless announced the availability of a NFC solution fully complying with the latest ETSI standards. According to the companies, the solution also meets the new GSM Association "Pay-Buy-Mobile" mobile handset requirements. Gemalto and Inside have been participating in seven "Pay-Buy-Mobile" pilot programs around the world.
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Security Section
According to Javelin Strategy & Research, the number of people falling victim to identity fraud in the US last year increased by 22% to 9.9 million adults. However, the 2009 Identity Fraud Survey Report found that detection and resolution efforts are having an impact, with consumers and businesses detecting and resolving fraud more quickly. As a result the mean consumer costs of identity fraud plummeted by 31% to $496 per incident in 2008. The study also found that women were 26% more likely to be victims of identity fraud than men this past year.
By some accounts, the most popular passwords are password and 123456. People are so predictable that many fraudsters commonly make use of lists of predictable passwords, such as the top 500 worst passwords on: http://www.whatsmypass.com/?p=415
Even “clever” passwords are predictable and make the list:
ncc1701 - The ship number for the Starship Enterprise.
thx1138 - The name of George Lucas’s first movie.
qazwsx - Follows a simple pattern when typed on a typical keyboard.
666666 - Six sixes.
7777777 - Seven sevens.
ou812 - The title of a 1988 Van Halen album.
8675309 - The number mentioned in the 1982 Tommy Tutone song.
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Leaders Roundtable
Security:
Protecting Member Data at Rest and in Motion
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Technology and Marketing
Fiserv has updated Aperio which is their business process management solution. Fiserv Aperio now features Campaign Management, which enables marketing departments to design, develop, deploy, monitor and measure their marketing campaigns across all channels. Fiserv Aperio treats each member as an individual “campaign” and applies focused marketing and process automation to their individual needs. Fiserv also said that Aperio Interaction Optimizer, which already delivers Intelligent Prompts (Best Next Action) to staffed and electronic channels, has been enhanced with an additional layer of sophisticated analytics that provides real-time modeling and scoring tools.
Syphr, a Ferndale, NY-based CUSO, announced that eight credit unions are currently beta testing a lead-generation product for credit unions that leverages the company's patent-pending rate discovery technology on websites that sell credit reports to consumers. The product, RateMatch, sources potential loan and new member prospects among 175,000 consumers who purchase a credit report each month. RateMatch then links consumers with a participating credit union following the purchase of a credit report.
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Online Banking/E-Commerce/Website Design
Primax announced the launch of their new proprietary web-based card issuer reporting productivity tool. Developed for credit union card issuers, the reporting tool offers card issuers proprietary access to their management reports. The tool allows clients secure access via the internet without installing software or viewing modules. Reporting options for accounts including history and balance are available; and customized reports can be created to sort by report month, client name, and other information fields.
Digital Insight has delivered Small Business FinanceWorks to help credit unions acquire low cost small business deposits and sustain a competitive advantage by offering an online hub for their small business members. They say that the package includes a suite of offerings that will enable a small business owner to get paid faster, expedite payroll processing and streamline bookkeeping by helping manage: 1) Billing and Invoicing; 2) Remote Deposits; 3) Legal Filings; and 4) Payroll.
Virgin Money announced that it is becoming a wholesale mortgage lender in the U.S. and that 150 brokers have already joined its high-tech network. They are now a lender and processor of traditional mortgages, as well as intra-family and seller-financed mortgages. Virgin Money says their platform features:
- Real-time status updates and rate quotes
- Clear and updated product guidelines
- Ability to import brokers' 1003 directly using their loan origination systems
- Paperless underwriting for all loans
- Ongoing, on-site technology training
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Internet Access
Aculab's ApplianX IP Gateway has won an ITEXPO EAST 2009 “Best of Show" award. Aculab says that their solution is designed to make it easy and affordable for organizations to switch to VoIP at a pace that suits them and that protects their investments in any legacy telephony equipment. ApplianX IP Gateway was recently updated to support Diversion, Transfer, Message Waiting Indicator and Route Optimization.
Packet Design has come out with a new product called the MPLS WAN Explorer which is designed to provide visibility into MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) networks. The software gives IT Departments route analytics tools so that they can view a complex WAN topology beyond the edges of the enterprise via a detailed map that shows distinct VPNs and highlights reachability problems. Packet Design says that their software accurately assesses how well telecom providers are doing, and helps hold them accountable for agreed-upon services and policies.
Microsoft has updated their unified communications platform and filled in some important gaps in its voice platform. We will cover the details in the March issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.
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Call Centers
According to a recent survey by FurstPerson, call centers identified employee referrals as the source of the largest percentage of new hires. The organization's website, print ads and national job boards were the next three most productive call center hiring strategies. The average monthly attrition rate in North American call centers was 7.18 percent; with the average cost of attrition per agent was $5,466.
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Conferences
Catch Tom and Bill Rogers, Associate Editor of Credit Union tech-talk at the following conferences in 2008:
April 6-8, Park City - 2009 MVi Users Conference
June 4-5, Lake Las Vegas - Credit Union InfoSecurity Conference
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