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Credit Union tech-talk News
February 2, 2009 - February 6, 2009
General News
* Technicolor FCU Partners with MVi
* New Mexico Energy FCU Goes with Code Green Networks
* Total Member Care Achieves 95% Revenue Growth in 2008
* WESCO Net Rolls Out Portal
* Open Solutions Promotes David Mitchell
Millennial Vision Inc. (MVi), a national reseller of Laserfiche document management solutions to credit unions, has signed on Technicolor Federal Credit Union of Burbank, CA to implement its Check 21 solution. Technicolor FCU also implemented document imaging; document, receipt, and report capture systems, remote delivery; and more in its quest to become a paperless and more efficient organization. MVi also announced that they enjoyed a 13.5% growth in sales in 2008 over 2007 and increased its staff by several new employees to support the growth.
Code Green Network announced that Albuquerque-based New Mexico Energy FCU has deployed their CI-750 Content Inspection Appliance to protect its network against data loss. The system inspects content moving over the network as well as at network endpoints, and integrates with cloud-based e-mail encryption key servers from Cisco Systems.
Total Member Care, a PSCU Financial Services solution formerly known as Digital Dialogue, provides 24/7 call center operations support and software solutions to credit unions, and announced that 2008 ended with significant increases in clients, staff and call volume, resulting in a 95 percent revenue growth compared to an 89 percent revenue growth in 2007. Company officials expect growth to continue throughout 2009.
WESCO Net, a Grand Rapids, MI-based provider of managed network solutions announced the launch of Latitude, its new client portal site. Latitude is a free service to WESCO Net managed server and firewall clients that will provide real-time access to the latest statistics and information about their WESCO Net managed devices. According to WESCO Net, their goal is to provide an easy interface to important status information, historical and live reports, and online forms and help desk.
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 the promotion of David Mitchell to the corporate position of senior vice president and chief marketing officer. Mitchell succeeds Mike Nicastro who retired from Open Solutions at the end of 2008.
Hardware News
Western Digital announced “the world’s highest capacity drive” at 2 terabytes. The WD Caviar Green WD20EADS is a 3.5-inch hard drive with 500 GB/platter technology and 32 MB cache. Specs include the following: StableTrac, which secures the motor shaft at both ends to reduce system-induced vibration and stabilize platters for accurate tracking during read and write operations; IntelliPower, which fine-tunes the balance of spin speed, transfer rate and caching algorithms; IntelliSeek, which calculates optimum seek speeds to lower power consumption, noise, and vibration; and NoTouch ramp load technology, which is designed to ensure the recording head never touches the disk media resulting in significantly less wear to the recording head and media.
Brocade has launched a multi-blade switch aimed at bringing enterprise class technology to smaller organizations. The DCX 4S is a four-blade-slot version of the 384-port, 8Gbps DCX chassis switch. In addition, the DCX-4S can be managed by using Brocade's Data Center Fabric Manager (DCFM) as a management tool.
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Software Updates
Cisco Systems on Tuesday introduced software for controlling energy use in networked computing equipment as well as building heating and cooling systems. Called EnergyWise, the software is a free upgrade to Cisco Catalyst switches that can monitor and manage how energy is used on IP-connected devices, including phones and wireless routers. With EnergyWise, IT Departments can set policies on energy use, allowing PCs or networking equipment to go into sleep mode after work hours. Early next year, EnergyWise will be able to manage building assets, including heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, and employee badge systems. Additionally, this summer Cisco will release a version, based on Verdiem's Surveyor PC management software, that reduces energy levels of PCs.
In a related story, a California-based vendor has released a product that measures the electricity being consumed by individual servers in a data center and makes recommendations based on those usage levels to help cut energy bills. It is being endorsed by Sun Microsystems, which uses the product to demonstrate the energy efficiency of its servers. We will tell you how it works in the March issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.
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Software Section Sponsored by
Raddon Financial Group (RFG)
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ATMs/Kiosks
NCR is shedding ATMs from its lower-end product line. NCR will discontinue the manufacture of the EasyPoint 3300 and the EasyPoint 3600. These are two former Tidel ATM models that NCR merged into its EasyPoint retail line after NCR acquired from Tidel Technologies in December 2005. On a more positive note, NCR launched a new web-based service for easier and faster management and processing of envelope-free deposits at ATMs. NCR APTRA Deposit Gateway is a web-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution that enables credit unions to perform check image processing for envelope-free deposits made at the ATM. The NCR solution, including server hardware and application software, will receive check images and transaction details captured at the ATM, consolidate the transactions and provide the credit union with online access to view check images, make corrections, generate transaction reports and send image cash letters electronically.
NextGen Research forecasts global markets for financial kiosks and enhanced ATMs to grow at a compound annual rate of 9% to include more than 186,000 financial kiosks and more than 2.4 million ATMs by 2013, more than half of them installed in the United States. Larry Fisher, Research Director of NextGen Research, observes that, “The ATM segment of the market will draw on enhanced capabilities in deposit automation for much of its growth, as machines that can instantly verify checks will rapidly replace older-generation ATMs. This will be especially true in the United States, where the market is saturated with outdated equipment.”
Wincor Nixdorf just wrapped up their annual Wincor World conference in Germany. The world's number two ATM maker was focusing on cash management, sales automation and marketing processes as well as managed services this year. We will provide some more details in the March issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.
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Biometric Digest Highlights - WWW.BIODIGEST.COM
Fujitsu has unveiled a waterproof biometric smartphone. The F-01A phone can survive in 3 feet of water for 30 minutes. The F-01A features AuthenTec's TouchStone waterproof packaging, TruePrint fingerprint technology and TrueNav navigational controls. According to AuthenTec, moisture is a leading cause of cell phone returns. AuthenTec says biometric fingerprint technology is particularly susceptible to wear and tear, so combining fingerprint and waterproof capabilities is a noteworthy feat.
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Wireless World
Research published by Monitise Americas shows that Americans are increasingly demanding 'always on' information about their money, with 77% saying that it was important for them to have real-time and immediate information regarding their credit union and credit card accounts. Information and basic money transfer services hold the most interest for consumers. Over 90% of those polled who stated that they wanted mobile money services said that they would like to check account balances, view latest transactions and receive fraud alerts. Transactional services are also in demand, with 90% also wanting to transfer money between checking and savings accounts and 80% saying that they would like to be able to pay bills and receive notification when they are due. However, when asked about their appetite for more advanced services, such as trading stocks using their cell-phone, only just over a third, 37%, expressed any interest in performing these services on the go.
According to Kaspersky Lab, a new Trojan is spreading via SMS text messages that instruct victims to transfer money from their accounts to attackers' phony accounts. The malware, which attacks Symbian mobile phones, is similar to a banking Trojan that targets PCs. So far, the Trojan is going after customers of an Indonesian mobile provider, according to Kaspersky.
PSCU Financial Services launched a mass issuance campaign for its contactless debit cards to help boost the use of this technology among credit unions. The campaign allows credit unions that register by June 30, 2009, to benefit from special promotional activities. As part of this special campaign, there is no minimum for cards ordered by Dec. 31, 2009. Both MasterCard and Visa debit cards are included.
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Security Section
Commtouch and Netgear have formed a partnership whereby Commtouch’s Recurrent Pattern Detection anti-spam and GlobalView URL Filtering services will be integrated into Netgear's ProSecure STM Series of Web and Email Threat Management Appliances. The STM Series combines email and Web security, as well as zero-hour protection and policy enforcement. Commtouch provides messaging and Web security technology which utilizes a cloud-based datacenter approach that automatically analyzes billions of Internet transactions in real-time to identify new email- and Web-based threats as they are initiated.
Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware (MBAM) is a scanner that is designed to keep malware off of your computers. MBAM comes in either the free version or the full version. The full version features a threats center, which will allows you to keep up to date with the latest malware threats. Activating the full version also unlocks real-time protection, scheduled scanning, and scheduled updating.
Fidelity National Information Services and CUNA Mutual have partnered to create a system for credit unions that they say will allow for more efficient and secure transfer of the plastic card fraud data needed to activate an insurance claim. In addition to saving credit unions time, streamlining the flow of fraud data will allow CUNA Mutual to help credit unions more quickly evaluate their plastic card fraud losses, including losses that fall below their deductibles. In the pilot evaluation, five credit unions agreed this solution saved their staff time and increased the efficiency of their program.
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Leaders Roundtable
Security:
Protecting Member Data at Rest and in Motion
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Technology and Marketing
CallFire announced a free 1-hour Call Tracking consultation for organizations interested in tracking telephone calls back to the original advertisement. The advertisers, using Internet, radio, TV, or print, can now purchase unique telephone numbers and then allocate these numbers to individual advertisements. With the call tracking interface of CallFire, advertisers can then easily trace which campaigns are driving the most telephone calls.
If your credit union would like to provide some links to a few free financial resource website for your members, you might consider these:
- www.mymoney.gov - This U.S. Treasury Department site has information to aid consumers in understanding, saving and better managing money.
- www.360financialliteracy.org - The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) created this site.
- www.jumpstart.org/mdb/browse.cfm. The JumpStart Coalition has a good set of resources available in its Clearinghouse.
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Online Banking/E-Commerce/Website Design
The world's leading payment networks are looking to establish global standards and interoperability between Online Banking Enabled e-Payments (OBeP) schemes. OBeP schemes are defined as those that allow consumers to pay for online purchases using their trusted online banking systems. The organizations that are evaluating how the systems might easily work together include: iDEAL (Netherlands), giropay (Germany), VocaLink (U.K.), NACHA (U.S.) and INTERAC Online (Canada).
Fiserv and PSCU Financial Services announced that they will co-sponsor an e-mail marketing campaign targeting consumers of credit unions served by PSCU Financial Services to become a part of their Go Paperless, Go Green Campaign. The two companies will sponsor the planting of one tree for every bill paid online by a new bill-pay subscriber at the credit union’s website from Jan. 19 through Feb. 28, 2009.
Many analysts believe that "green banking" not only has a direct, positive effect on the environment, but includes tangible security and cost benefits for the credit union as well. We will cover some of the most effective green recommendations for members in the March issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.
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Internet Access
If your credit union is getting ready to deploy a VoIP system or looking to add more VoIP lines but is unsure on how your network would handle the extra traffic, you may want to consider the OpManager VoIP Monitor. This module brings together network fault and performance management functionalities of OpManager, VoIP Quality of Service monitoring using Cisco IP SLA technology and granular network traffic troubleshooting from Netflow Analyzer to give you a complete end-to-end VoIP network management solution. OpManager's VoIP Monitor covers these areas:
- Pre-deployment testing of a network to run VoIP
- Continuous monitoring of VoIP network performance
- Troubleshooting poor VoIP call quality
- Planning & testing for capacity additions
Vidyo has been awarded the 2009 Frost & Sullivan Product of the Year Award in the North American Conferencing and Collaboration Market. The telepresence solutions provider was recognized for their new line of video conferencing products that leverages a new standard (H.264/SVC). Using scalable video coding (SVC), Vidyo's architecture allows applications to adapt to varying network conditions, including packet loss, fluctuating network bandwidth, and network delay. The award proclamation said that this approach has the potential to remove the barrier to large-scale adoption of video conferencing.
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Call Centers
In a bid to make it easier for call centers to have advanced speech technologies, Loquendo and MicroAutomation have announced a partnership for technical support and professional services. MicroAutomation is a systems integrator of call center automation solutions and will make it possible for customers to enhance their current applications by easily adding Loquendo speech products and services. This includes the company's text-to-speech (TTS) and speech recognition (ASR) offerings, which provide a number of voices and languages to choose from - the company offers 26 languages with 62 voices in both male and female versions.
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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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