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January 25, 2010 - January 29, 2010
General News
* MVi Wins 12th Consecutive Winners Circle Award
* Better Branches Enhances Better Lobby
* Patelco CU Adds Guardian Analytics’ FraudMAP
* CUOL Completes Platform Upgrade
Millennial Vision, Inc. (MVi), a Salt Lake City-based reseller of Laserfiche Electronic Content Management Software (ECM), received its 12th consecutive Laserfiche Winners Circle award. Laserfiche recognized its top resellers at the annual Winners Circle banquet held in Indian Wells, CA. In addition, 2010 marks the 14th year MVi has been marketing Laserfiche ECM to credit unions throughout the United States.
Better Branches, a software and consulting CUSO, has enhanced Better Lobby which is its lobby management solution. One of the key new Better Lobby features is Remote Lobby Manager, a new tool that enables managers to oversee the activities of two or more branches from a remote location. Also new is a productivity feature that summarizes the time each employee spends on each member service activity.
Guardian Analytics, a provider of online account fraud prevention software for credit unions, announced that Patelco Credit Union has signed with them to install their FraudMAP solution. FraudMAP delivers fraud prevention through accurate detection, actionable analysis and increased visibility into suspicious online activity. Guardian Analytics' proprietary Dynamic Account Modeling technology models all individual online account holder activity session by session, from log in to log out, to detect suspicious actions and flag behaviors inconsistent with predicted account holder behavior.
Credit Union On-Line (CUOL) the country’s only data center provider of FiServ’s XP2 platform, announced that it has completed migrating its 22 customers onto Fiserv XP2’s latest comprehensive release. Among improvements, the upgrade – Service Pack 15e – sharply decreases the time it takes to verify deposits; plus teller capture, automated loan rewards and other loyalty rewards also are included.
Hardware News
Dell has launched its first product with 6Gbit/s SAS drives, enclosures and RAID controllers. The new PowerVault direct-attached storage (DAS) series includes the new SAS standard which was ratified last year. The new range includes five products: three PowerEdge RAID controllers (PERC): H200, H700 and H800 and two PowerVault enclosures, the MD1200 and MD1220, for external storage expansion. The systems are flexible in that customers can use a combination of SSDs and 2.5inch drives, depending on their needs and budget.
Lockheed Martin and IronKey announced an ultra-secure USB flash drive with custom software that allows you to take an entire computer with you for secure use on any public computer. Called IronClad, the drive is available starting at 8GB capacity and offers 256-bit military-grade encryption, built-in malware protection, and a rugged water- and shock-resistant metal casing. Remote management lets you “brick,” or permanently wipe all data from, lost or stolen drives, and a managed, “white-listed” application portfolio which means no unauthorized programs or applications can be loaded into the system.
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Hardware Section Sponsored by
Millennial Vision, Inc. (MVi)
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Software Updates
The Sysinternals tools are excellent for managing and troubleshooting Windows systems at granular levels, and now they have a new one called VMMap. This is a small tool at only 346 KB, but it does a good job of presenting a visual display of physical and virtual memory for a Windows system. The map shows the difference between committed memory and the working set, as well as specific addresses in use for the various categories of used memory, which includes image, private, shareable, mapped file, heap, managed heap, stack, and system. These categories are more detailed than the memory areas that we have become accustomed to seeing in the Performance Monitor counters.
Critics of Microsoft Office say that it is too expensive and resource intensive. They claim that there are perfectly viable low cost alternatives on the market that generate Office-compatible files. We will explore these claims in the February 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
NCR announced the sale of its 50,000th NCR SelfServ ATM. The NCR SelfServ brand was launched less than two years ago and is now in use by nearly 700 financial institutions in more than 110 countries around the world. The largest number of NCR SelfServ orders has been for multifunction units — ATMs with additional features beyond cash dispensing, including intelligent deposit.
ATM marketing proponents say that well designed “one-to-one marketing” campaigns can realize response rates of 10 percent and higher, far exceeding the 1 percent to 2 percent success rates of traditional direct mail campaigns. They believe that more credit unions should make the effort to launch low cost ATM marketing campaigns. We will cover some ATM marketing examples in the February issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.
Credit Union 24, the country’s largest credit union-owned ATM and point-of-sale (POS) network, announced that 21 credit unions renewed long-term contracts with the network in Q4 2009, representing more than $2.8 billion in assets with more than 300,000 members. A total of 73 credit unions renewed contracts with the network during 2009, representing more than $12.5 billion in assets and more than 1.3 million credit union 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:
Telecom Recovery
and their client is:
Fiscal 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
According to SJB Research, near field communication (NFC) will finally drive the widespread adoption of payments by mobile phones starting in 2011. "NFC technology will be used to replace everything from credit cards and loyalty cards to bus and train tickets, library cards, door keys and even cash," says Sarah Clark, author of 'NFC: The Road to Commercial Deployment.' "What hasn't yet been decided, however, is who will win the battle to provide consumers with their new hi-tech mobile wallets."
A company called Wonga has launched a mobile app that offers instant short-term loans over the iPhone to approved applicants. The London-based firm claims that the new app turns the iPhone into a "virtual cash machine" for urgent or unexpected expenses. First time consumers download the app for free and fill in a four page application form before being considered for a loan. The payday-type loans are designed as short-term cash advances up to a maximum of 31 days, with interest charged at high payday-type levels: one per cent a day. Users who accept these rates can apply for credit up to a maximum of about $1600, with funds transferred to the successful applicant's credit union account within 15 minutes.
Torrance Community Credit Union has launched a mobile RDC app for the iPhone. The software was developed by Vertifi Software, a wholly-owned subsidiary of EasCorp. Deposits are posted to members’ accounts in real time with immediate access to check images. Checks will be processed electronically, end-to-end, through the credit union’s partnerships with EasCorp and INTECH.
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Security Section
Surprisingly, the recession has not spurred more FI robberies. In fact, the FBI says that robberies have plunged to their lowest levels in at least 10 years. The FBI reports that there were about 5,500 FI robberies in 2009, down about 18 percent from 2008.
Intelliden has released iAudit, a cloud-based application that validates device configuration against internal and vendor-defined policies. Currently available for Cisco IOS-based and Juniper JUNOS-based routers, iAudit uses vendor-set guidelines for ACL, interface, Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and security best practices recommended by the National Security Agency and Defense Information Systems Agency to check compliance of network device configuration. Network managers can generate reports regarding policies, pass/fail results, description of policy checks and impact assessments - all for free.
ALWIL Software, makers of the world's most popular free antivirus program with over 100 million users, has launched new versions of its free and premium software. Together with the free version, avast! 5.0 is also introducing the new premium Internet Security suite and an update of its paid Pro Antivirus product. The new avast! Pro Antivirus 5.0 uses the same core detection engine as the free version, but with more customization options.
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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
ProTracker Advantage is a CRM program designed by financial experts. Now ProTracker has come out with a SaaS version called ProTracker Cloud. It includes the ProTracker Advantage CRM system, Microsoft Office 2007 (MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint), and Microsoft Outlook for e-mail. All of these programs come standard with ProTracker Cloud and are accessible using a Web browser. ProTracker Cloud utilizes two-factor authentication: 1) username and a strong password, plus 2) a hardware token.
Utah-based Goldenwest Credit Union has seen excellent results from an aggressive marketing campaign designed to attract former customers of the recently defunct Barnes Bank. Special offers included $75 and $100 respectively for new personal checking and business accounts opened, and mortgage specials of 4.99% for 5 years and 5.74% for 7 years. They also used social media to blog and tweet about the credit union advantage and even handed out flyers in the local Barnes Bank parking lot. The efforts paid off: Goldenwest CU’s Kayville branch and the credit union set a record for most accounts opened at a single branch.
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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
Some analysts believe that financial institutions have been systematically remiss at educating consumers (especially new and young ones) about how to recognize authentic banking emails and how to identify phishing attempts. They argue for more regular, authenticated, validated email that educates users on what to expect in emails sent to them by their credit union and allowing them to more easily spot phishing emails. They want to see credit unions start adding SPF to their DNS and DKIM to the email headers (effectively signing the mail as authentic), and posit that these 2 technologies alone will have a significant impact on the amount of phishing email that actually gets to the inbox. Meanwhile, some critics counter that email is just too insecure and that the only secure way to deliver electronic messages to and from members is inside online banking sessions.
The Federal Reserve Banks announced plans to conduct another series of studies to determine the current volume and composition of check and electronic payments in the United States. These studies will build on information gained from similar studies conducted by the Reserve Banks in 2001, 2004 and 2007. The three-part study, which will be conducted by McKinsey & Company, is aimed at estimating the annual number, dollar value and composition of retail noncash payments in the United States.
The CARD Act goes into effect on Feb. 22 and with it comes stronger consumer protections. Without a doubt, 2010 will bring big changes for card issuers. We will cover some of the trends in the February 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
ShorteTel, which provides IP telephony systems, released its latest product version with ShoreTel 10, offering extended Microsoft Exchange 2007 support including enhanced Session Initiation Protocol capabilities, T.38 fax integration and enhancements to multi-site capabilities. Also in a deal with IBM, ShoreTel’s IP phone system will be bundled with IBM’s Lotus Foundations Reach. IBM’s Foundation line is a series of appliances designed to be an IT infrastructure in a box. Within IBM’s Lotus Foundations Reach, ShoreTel will act as the IP telephony component. The box includes instant messaging, emailing and calendar capabilities.
According to the Number Resource Organization (NRO), which represents the registries that allocate Internet numbers around the world, the shortage of IPv4 addresses has reached a critical stage. They say that less than 10 percent of all IPv4 addresses remain available, threatening the future network operations of all businesses and organizations unless ISPs and businesses step up their migration to IPv6. An NRO spokesperson notes that "the deployment of IPv6 is a key infrastructure development that will enable the network to support the billions of people and devices that will connect in the coming years."
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Call Centers
So-called "visible queues" inform callers of their EWT (estimated wait time) at the outset, while "invisible queues" (those where the caller does not know EWT) can result in high abandon rates and caller frustration. Visible queues reduce the amount your center wastes on toll charges and free up trunk resources. These callers are also less frustrated because they haven't wasted a significant amount of time on hold, and abandon rates go down. Another alternative is a "virtual queue" system that informs callers of their EWT and then gives them options for managing their wait: hanging up and receiving a callback when it is their turn to speak with an agent; scheduling a callback for a more convenient time; or waiting on hold.
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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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