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November 1, 2010 - November 5, 2010
General News
* Symitar Adds 2 New Cruise Clients
* CUES Joins New Market Partners to Offer Alternative Financial Services
* Educational Systems FCU Selects Geezeo
* Granite State Credit Union Selects Fiserv's Acumen
* CU*Answers Welcomes 90th Owner
* Code Green Networks Signs New England FCU
Greater Eastern Credit Union of Johnson City, TN and Mississippi Federal Credit Union (Jackson) have implemented Jack Henry & Associates’ Windows-based, .NET-architected Cruise core processing platform provided by its Symitar division. Eight other credit unions have elected to replace existing technology platforms with Cruise during the past 60 days.
The Credit Union Executives Society announced a partnership with New Market Partners, Atlanta, to help credit unions reach the Cash Banking market. CU Cash Banking Solution is a complete program for building and implementing cash banking services. It’s composed of strategic products and tools, including full-service check cashing, prepaid debit cards, remittances, and bill payment, aggregated into a single interface that can be implemented individually or as a turnkey program.
Geezeo, a diversified online services provider that offers online financial management (OFM) tools, personal financial management (PFM), social networking and Web community platforms to credit unions, announced that Maryland-based Educational Systems Federal Credit Union has selected Geezeo to provide a PFM solution and integrated marketing platform. Chartered in 1955, Educational Systems FCU ($335M) has branches in Greenbelt, Upper Marlboro, Bowie, Waldorf, Prince Frederick and California Maryland.
Fiserv, a leading global provider of financial services technology solutions and the largest provider of business-driven technology solutions for credit unions, announced that New Hampshire-based Granite State Credit Union has chosen to implement the Acumen account processing solution from Fiserv with in-house delivery. In addition to Acumen, Granite State will implement several value-add solutions from Fiserv, including LynxGate for switch gateway processing; Nautilus for enterprise content management; AML Manager for compliance; CheckFree RXP for electronic bill payment; debit card processing and fraud detection; and the UChoose Rewards loyalty program.
CU*Answers recently announced the addition of Horizon Utah Federal Credit Union as its 90th stock owner. The Farmington, UT-based credit union serves more than 15,000 members in the Greater Salt Lake City Area. According to the 100% credit union-owned CUSO, 2010 has been a record year, welcoming nine new owners.
Williston, VT-based New England Federal Credit Union has implemented Code Green Network’s TruDLP data loss prevention solution. TrueDLP monitors network traffic to determine data patterns and to help develop policies to prevent data leaks.
Hardware News
Ciphertex Data Security introduced the CX-RANGER/E, a portable encrypted RAID system with AES 256-bit hardware-based encryption and up to 5 Terabytes of storage capacity. It features e-SATA and USB 3.0 interface for fast data transfer rates, five hot-swappable 2.5” drives, and on-the-fly hardware encryption. Additional features of the CX Ranger include:
- Graphical, menu driven interface
- Bundled with NovaBACKUP data protection software
- Remote management and configuration through a standard web browser
Xerox is touting that two of their latest business class color printers - the ColorQube 8870 ($2,499) and the Xerox ColorQube 8570 ($699 and up) - are environmentally friendly. So what makes these printers green? Here some of the specific features:
• Energy Star compliance
• Solid ink that is designed to generate up to 90 percent less waste than rival laser printer technology
• Print drivers that default to two-sided printing and for using recycled paper more effectively
• A power management feature called Intelligent Ready that uses artificial intelligence to take traditional usage patterns into account and power down accordingly
• GreenPrint software that lets you know if you are about to print unnecessary pages
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Hardware Section Sponsored by
Millennial Vision, Inc. (MVi)
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Software Updates
CCleaner, a system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool, has been upgraded to version 3. It removes unused files from your system, and contains a fully featured registry cleaner. Changes in version 3.0 include:
- A new 64-bit native EXE designed specifically for 64-bit systems
- A new Drive Wiper tool screen under the Tools section, which allows users to securely erase the contents or free space on a specified drive
- Improved support for Internet Explorer 9 and the Google Chrome browsers
- An improved cleaning support for HTML5 database storage, allowing CCleaner to effectively manage the next generation of web applications
- New Intelligent cookie keeping feature
Microsoft is updating the server version of its Windows operating system to give the OS more virtualization capabilities. The service pack can also be applied to Windows 7 as well. We will provide all of the details in the December 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 research firm Celent, nearly 97% of US financial institutions now receive electronic images, and image (aka intelligent deposit) ATMs now represent 40% of deposit-taking ATMs. While Celent expects that 95% of US financial institutions will have implemented branch and/or teller capture solutions across some or all branches within the next two years, image ATM adoption remains measured. For most financial institutions, Celent says that the ATM channel will be the last domino to fall in their image migration. Others will opt out of imaging for on-premise ATMs, choosing to pay branch staff to do the imaging instead.
Verizon Business, a research arm of the telecom giant, recently released its predictions on changes impacting financial institutions in its report "Top Trends in Financial Services." Verizon Business predicts that kiosks will come to replace many ATMs and be used by financial institutions more widely due to their mobility, interactive abilities, and because they are less expensive to operate than a branch. The kiosk will perform the tasks now conducted by ATM — dispense cash, accept deposits and so on — but also provide more functionality, such as showing videos and advertisements tailored to each user. The research firm believes that this personalization will be made possible because kiosks will be equipped with biometric readers that authenticate the consumer, providing greater security than a PIN, and that the next step is the digital commerce kiosk with video.
According to research by Wincor Nixdorf, Americans carry on average $185 in cash in their wallets and the number of dollars in circulation has increased by 42% since 2000. We will cover how these numbers affect ATM deployments in the December issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe today.
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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:
Stirling Systems Group
and their client is:
Coast Central 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
Mitek Systems is now moving into mobile capture for bill payments. With their new Mobile Photo Bill Pay application, a Aite estimates that today, only about 4% of businesses around the world currently use mobile banking services, but their research shows that two-thirds of businesses are at least "somewhat likely' to use mobile corporate banking services to perform basic transactions such as checking balances or transferring funds. Aite's research also found that almost half (49%) of businesses are willing to pay for the convenience of mobile cash management capabilities, pointing toward the ability to generate fee-based revenues to cover some of the cost associated with mobile banking.
Sprint Nextel subscribers will be able to link their credit cards and other traditional payment methods to a mobile purchasing system coming next month. Users will be able to link Visa, MasterCard, American Express, PayPal, Amazon Payments and other accounts to the mobile wallet and then authorize a purchase with those accounts by entering a PIN and choosing an account to use. The same PIN would cover all the customer's payment accounts.
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Security Section
According to a new ID theft report from FinCen, 27.5% cases of cases of ID theft are linked to a victim's family members or coworkers, while only 3.5 percent of the ID theft incidents reported in SARs related to computer viruses and Trojans, such as Zeus. For vishing and phishing, the incidents reported amounted to a mere .15 percent. Identity theft was the sixth most frequently reported characterization of suspicious activity, trailing money laundering, check fraud, mortgage loan fraud, credit card fraud, and counterfeit check fraud.
AVG announced that AVG Internet Security 2011 Business Edition and AVG Anti-Virus 2011 Business Edition, both intended for small and midsize companies, are available. Both products provide protection for file servers and for endpoint devices (desktop and laptop computers). The Internet Security Suite also includes mail server protection, and endpoint anti-spam. New features in both products include "smart scanning" to skip over files known to be safe; and AVG's Threat Labs information about threats on websites that AVG prevents a user from visiting; a one-click Auto-Fix button "to resolve common issues on individual workstations"; checking links exchanged in Facebook and MySpace when accessing these sites from a browser on a LAN or computer protected by AVG software; and a desktop widget giving administrators a summary view including non-compliant workstations and of server workloads.
Video surveillance is moving to the cloud as Video Surveillance as a Service (VSaaS) which is simply another name for hosted or managed video services. We will cover VSaaS in the December issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.
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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
Core Systems:
Helping with Regulatory Issues and Compliance Pressures
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Technology and Marketing
MicroStrategy, a provider of business intelligence software, and Teradata, a provider of data warehousing and enterprise analytics, are collaborating to offer a new multi-channel consumer analytics solution for financial institutions. The firms say that they are offering an easy to use information dashboard that can integrate experiences across a broad range of member touch points. They state that their software can help make analytically-based decisions to improve marketing campaigns, launch new products, enhance service programs, and ultimately retain and grow member relationships.
PSCU Financial Services is offering a new suite of professional, customizable marketing materials under the name of The NetEffect Marketing Gateway. Credit unions can benefit from online access to promotional materials for credit, debit, prepaid, CURewards and eCommerce solutions as well as small business owners and other key market segments. Credit unions can personalize content and add their own branding to these materials.
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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
According to the Aite Group, despite the increasing popularity of the Internet and the emergence of the mobile channel as a way to transact and interact, checks sent through the mail remain the most prevalent method for paying bills in the US. The number of bill payments made through the mail will fall just short of 5 billion for 2010, accounting for about one-third of all payments made, whereas payments made at a biller site — including recurring and mobile payments — will account for 23% of all bills paid in 2010. Roughly four in 10 consumers say they would change how they pay their bills if they received rewards for paying with a debit or credit card, or received a cash incentive for changing their behavior. In addition, Aite says that the rapid adoption of smartphones will help drive bill pay behavior change over the next three years.
"A sizable and growing minority of American consumers who once possessed a credit card no longer have one," says the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Consumer Payments Research Center. Surveys done over the last two years indicate that the “discard rate,” the percentage of consumers who have abandoned that method of paying for purchases, grew from 14% in 2008 to 16.5% in 2009. In contrast, the discard rate among Americans for prepaid cards was 27.5%, while debit cards were about 5%.
Citi's country CEO claims that Citi Australia has slashed online fraud rates to "almost zero" in Australia by using two factor authentication. Citi employs a two-factor security system, with customers entering a user ID before typing in a password using a dynamic keypad on the screen and answering a predetermined security question. In addition, Citi in Australia is testing voice biometrics from an unnamed supplier. The technology - which the CEO claims he has unsuccessfully tried to fool by speaking in a girl's voice - could be rolled out to select early adopters for mobile banking within three months.
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Internet Access
DSL vendors are using a variety of methods such as bonding several copper lines, creating virtual ones and using advanced noise cancellation to increase broadband over copper to several hundred megabits per second. To boost DSL to those kinds of speeds, vendors are using a number of technologies such as using VDSL2 (Very high bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line) over several copper pairs at the same time, compared to traditional DSL which only uses one copper pair. Copper is still the most common way of carrying fixed broadband, with a share of about 65 percent, compared to 20 percent for cable and 12 percent for fiber, according to market research company Point Topic.
Level 3 Communications recently unveiled its Converged Business Network service which is a solution that provides voice, Internet and data networking over one circuit. By using a single circuit, access costs and the complexity of managing multiple services can be reduced. Among the services that Level 3's Converged Business Network option includes are: Level 3 Dedicated Internet Access (DIA), Level 3 Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network (IPVPN), and Level 3 Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Trunking voice services. Standard packages offer the choice of connection speeds ranging from 1.5M to 45Mbps or Ethernet connectivity with speeds as high as 100Mbps.
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Internet Access Section Sponsored by
Coyote Point Systems
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ADCs take over where server load balancers leave off
In the last decade, server load balancers were hailed as the solution to website scalability and availability problems. These devices balanced traffic across servers to ensure the site was available and could handle traffic spikes. If one server went down, the load balancer redirected traffic. When a site got "slashdotted" you could add more servers transparently.
Flash forward to 2010; Web servers aren't just delivering static content, they're delivering Apps. Businesses are using Web-based applications to deliver mission critical functionalities to employees and customers. Simple load balancing is no longer sufficient.
Fortunately, load balancers have evolved into Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs). This new species understands application specific traffic and can optimize application server performance by offloading many of the computer intensive tasks that would otherwise bog down CPUs that could be better occupied elsewhere. This article will discuss how ADCs have taken over where server load balancers left off.
Click Here to Download the White Paper "ADCs take over where server load balancers leave off"
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Call Centers
New research from the Aberdeen Group shows that speech analytics can dramatically improve contact center performance and efficiency. "Speech analytics provides a deeper variation in the data and better understanding of what is actually driving repeat calls. How can the contact center agent reduce repeat callers and increase first call resolution? The answers to these questions are well aligned with the deployment of a speech analytics solution," said Gaurav Patil, research analyst and author of the study. Patil said that utilization of speech analytics in the contact center can better serve the agents to help identify the gender of the speaker, the emotional character of the speaker, the topics being discussed by the caller, or whether the caller asked a question or made a statement during the conversation with the agent.
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Conferences
Catch Tom and Bill Rogers, Associate Editor of Credit Union tech-talk, at these upcoming conferences:
November 4-6, Phoenix - Credit Union InfoTECH
June 15-17, Las Vegas - Credit Union InfoSecurity Conference
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