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November 16, 2009 - November 20, 2009
General News
* Enhanced Software Products Launches Mobile Banking & Adds Renewals
* Open Solutions Makes Deloitte’s 2009 Technology Fast 500
* Coastal FCU Opens 1,100 New Accounts with uMonitor’s uOpen & uFund
* Xtend Answers the Call for Converting Credit Unions
* Xceedium Enhances Gatekeeper Platform
Enhanced Software Products (ESP), a credit union core data processing provider with more than 13 years of experience, announced the launch of its new Mobile Banking product. Developed in-house, this new offering is completely browser-based and will work on any web-enabled mobile device while seamlessly integrating with ESP’s current online banking security protocols. ESP also announced the renewal of 3 credit unions on the Spokane-based company's flagship core processing platform; FORZA: Barbados Teachers Co-Op CU; Bahamas Law Enforcement Co-Op CU; and River City Community CU (Lacrosse, WI).
Open Solutions, a leading provider of integrated enabling technologies for credit unions throughout the United States, Canada and other international markets, announced that it has been ranked on the Technology Fast 500, Deloitte LLP’s ranking of 500 of the fastest growing technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences and clean technology companies in North America. Rankings are based on percentage of fiscal year revenue growth during the five-year period from 2004–2008. Open Solutions grew more than 302 percent during this period.
uMonitor, an innovative financial solution services provider for member acquisition and retention, announced that Raleigh, NC-based Coastal Federal Credit Union successfully launched a suite of uMonitor’s online solutions to provide better service via its Web channel. Coastal began live operations with uOpen & uFund in March 2009 and opened more than 1,100 new member accounts in the first six months, with 13% of all new members being attributed to using the new solution. The credit union also implemented uTransfer in November 2008 and in less than one year members have deposited more than $12 million from outside institutions with the service.
Within the past month, Xtend, a Michigan-based multi-owned cooperative CUSO, has provided call center services for three credit unions during their transition to a new core data processing system. Call center support was provided for two Ohio credit unions: PEF FCU based in Highland Heights and Vacationland FCU based in Sandusky, and one South Dakota credit union: Rapid City-based Rapid City Telco FCU. Each credit union underwent a conversion to the CU*BASE core data processing system from CU*Answers.
Xceedium, a leading provider of next generation access control and audit solutions, announced that version 5.0 of their Xceedium GateKeeper now includes comprehensive support for VMWare. The new version also offers support for mainframes and an updated GUI.
Hardware News
A "PC on a stick" is a USB drive that is loaded with the user's desktop and that drive can recreate that desktop on multiple machines. The drive is encrypted, so a misplaced drive would result simply in the loss of a $15 device. VMware's USB tool called the Assured Computing Environment contains a virtualized machine running an operating system and applications and storing files. Even if it is loaded on a PC infected with malware, the drive operates in its own protected environment.
Dell announced the launch of three new workgroup printers, including what it says is the world’s fastest single-function letter size color laser printer. The 5130cdn has a rated print speed of up to 47 single-side and 37.6 double-side LTR pages per minute, in both monochrome and color. The Dell 5130cdn is available for $1,549. Dell also announced its first LED color printer with tabloid-size printing capability: the 7130cdn at $2,799. Finally, Dell announced a new single-function monochrome laser printer, the 3330dn at $599.
Truliant Federal Credit Union has implemented six appliances from KACE Systems Management to help them manage application updates and other Help Desk related tasks. The appliances are all integrated, but each one is designed for a specific purpose such as hardware and software inventory, Help Desk reporting, etc. The KACE platform saves the credit union about 7,000 hours of staff time per year.
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Hardware Section Sponsored by
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Software Updates
Experian is rolling out a couple of "ability to pay" products: Income Insight and Income View. They are designed to more accurately estimate or verify a borrower's income and provide a key insight into that consumer's ability to repay a loan." Income Insight is designed to support recent legislation by providing an estimate of a borrower's individual income utilizing verified income data and proprietary credit bureau attributes. Income View is a Web-based tax verification service that provides clients with IRS 4506-T processing and prompt access to applicants' verified income via the IRS.
Microsoft has launched its new Forefront Protection 2010 anti-malware for Exchange that incorporates malware engines from Microsoft and various partners. Microsoft claims that it provides 38 times faster malware detection and decreases unsolicited email to the point where only one out of 250,000 unsolicited messages gets through. Integration with Exchange provides the ability to scan messages and documents simultaneously, while built-in information protection with Active Directory rights management services give users and IT administrators more control over what e-mail and documents can do and who can receive them. Meanwhile, Microsoft said that it was delaying the release of its Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010 for Windows desktops until the second half of next year.
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Software Updates Sponsored by
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ATMs/Kiosks
Allpoint Network, the first surcharge-free ATM network in the United States to offer iPhone and Android applications for locating surcharge-free ATMs, has released a BlackBerry application, which means that they now offer ways to find surcharge-free ATMs to more than 85 percent of the smart phone market. The new app joins a 24-hour speech phone system, a mobile Web-friendly locator, and GPS-download functionality for Allpoint website search results.
Nautilus Hyosung exhibited their "automatic tilting screen" for their 7600D drive-up ATM at the recent BAI Retail Delivery Conference. The ATM manufacturer also showed their 7600 full-function lobby ATM model, which features envelope-free BNA and BCA deposit functionality.
Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union is installing a Personal Teller Machine in its Newburgh branch. uGenius Technology's Personal Teller Machine is a video-banking terminal that will offer the credit union’s members 24-hour banking with remote tellers. Members will use a touchscreen to connect with a teller who is stationed at the credit union's main office in Kingston to conduct deposits, withdrawals or a number of other financial transactions. ID and debit cards are scanned to verify identity and account information.
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Biometric Digest Highlights - WWW.BIODIGEST.COM
Sagem Orga is rolling out their new Direct-to-Card fingerprint technology that they claim will guarantee maximum privacy for users when employees access sensitive user information such as financial reports. With Direct-to-Card fingerprint technology, the user's biometrics are kept confidential between his or her own smart card and the biometric sensors and never pass through the user's workstation.
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Wireless World
According to Juniper Research, One in six mobile users is expected to own a near field communications (NFC)-capable device by 2014. The research firm said in a new report that NFC adoption will be driven initially by transport ticketing services, followed by retail payment services. The firm notes that stickers that turn any phone into an NFC-capable device could help boost uptake until phones with embedded NFC technology become widely available. Case in point: Giesecke & Devrient is providing the Convego Air Mobile which is a sticker that enables the user to pay contactlessly. The sticker contains the full functionality of a credit or debit card. Once the thin and pliable foil has been affixed to a cellphone or PDA the device can be used to pay bills at all cash terminals and ticket machines supporting the worldwide contactless MasterCard PayPass standard.
Texas-based Randolph-Brooks Federal Credit Union plans to implement a deposit-by-cell phone service. The $3.4 billion credit union already has a product that enables members to remotely scan checks for deposits, as well as mobile banking. Their new platform is being developed in conjunction with MShift and EasCorp.
Automated text messages are becoming increasingly popular for alerting members to low balances, bill payments due, etc. Now a group of economists has released a study about the positive effect of regular SMS messages on building up savings accounts. We will tell you how one program actually increased savings by an average of 16 percent in the December issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe today.
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Security Section
WhiteHat Security's recently released Website Security Statistics reveal a mostly unchanged list of the top 10 vulnerabilities - cross-site scripting (XSS) is still the most prevalent vulnerability. WhiteHat found that 83 percent of the scanned websites have had at least one serious vulnerability - meaning either high, critical, or urgent as defined by PCI-DSS - and 64 percent currently harbor at least one serious vulnerability. The top 10 vulnerabilities are XSS (66 percent); information leakage (49 percent); content spoofing (31 percent); insufficient authorization (19 percent); SQL injection (18 percent); predictable resource location (14 percent); cross-site request forgery (12 percent); session fixation (12 percent); HTTP response splitting (10 percent); and abuse of functionality (9 percent).
Security specialist Giesecke & Devrient has developed an interactive feature known as FEEL-ID, which they say systematically combines multiple security technologies in order to achieve maximum protection against counterfeiting. FEEL-ID is a feature that reacts to changes in temperature by utilizing the thermochromic properties of the materials employed. Identity documents such as national ID cards, driver's licenses and passports can be authenticated rapidly and reliably using techniques as simple as rubbing them with your finger. The basis of FEEL-ID is STEP, a semi-transparent, optically variable special-effect ink incorporating a three-dimensional structure. Two different colors can be seen depending on the viewing angle, and neither the change in color nor the optical 3-D effect can be copied.
Diebold is providing Ascend Federal Credit Union with a pure-IP surveillance system enabling remote, web-based viewing and analysis in real time. In addition, the IP surveillance system helps Ascend quickly digitize and transmit video images, intrusion detection information, access control data and various reports. Also by working with Diebold and Passlogix, a sign-on, provisioning and authentication solutions provider, Ascend deployed a smart card solution that allows the credit union to migrate from traditional key and password controls to a single, secure card that permits access to both physical assets and computer applications. In the near future, Ascend plans to utilize Diebold's Managed Access Control solution to grant authorized personnel access to specific areas of branch locations with the option to define access by specific dates and times.
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Leaders Roundtable
Core Systems:
Helping CUs Focus on Opportunities
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Technology and Marketing
Equifax announced the launch of a new solution to help credit unions drive increased return-on-investment from their portfolio review processes. InterConnect for Account Management enables credit unions to automate account segmentation and risk decisioning for credit line adjustments and cross-sell offers. The software provides a consolidated look at each member within the portfolio and segments these members based on behavioral and transactional data from Equifax, third-party sources and internal databases. Equifax says that their system automates account-level decisions for:
• Credit line assignments
• Exception handling and compliance reporting
• Implementation of new risk policies
• Cross-sell and product optimization
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Online Banking/E-Commerce/Website Design
NetDeposit announced that its NetCapture Branch product is now available in an application service provider environment. The firm says that this affordable branch capture alternative is available to credit unions that may not have the budget or resources to implement this technology in-house. The goal is to eliminate the burden of traditional Day One proof, item repair and balancing within their operation, and lower courier fees.
In 2006, counterfeit fraud in Canada on debit and credit totaled almost $250 million, so in response card issuers began rolling out chip-based debit and credit cards. Now Moneris Solutions, Canada's largest payment processor, has research that shows that "merchants who process chip card transactions are experiencing fewer chargebacks than ever before due to increased security and fraud detection. This is the first data of its kind from Canada and demonstrates that chip cards reduce fraud and chargebacks."
Credit unions are reacting to social media in various forms: some are choosing to ignore social media; others are dabbling in it; and a few are going full force. A large financial research and consulting firm has come out with a new report that posits that social media is part of the online world and credit unions cannot afford to ignore it. We will summarize their findings in the December issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.
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Internet Access
Avistar Communications announced an addition to its family of Avistar C3 software solutions: the Avistar C3 Unified - Microsoft OCS Edition. The firm says that their solution picks up where Microsoft OCS leaves off by extending Microsoft OCS and delivering a desktop visual communications experience that is feature-rich and interoperable. The Avistar C3 Unified – Microsoft OCS Edition solution is designed to deliver a business-class desktop videoconferencing experience and enable a direct interoperability between desktop video solutions and SIP- and H.323- enabled room solutions. The solution also supports presence multiparty videoconferencing and HD (720p) video resolution, and utilizes Microsoft OCS presence and desktop integration features.
Cybercriminals have found a new launching pad for their scams: the phone systems of small and midsized businesses. Attacks on one of the most popular VoIP systems, called Asterisk, are now "endemic," according to some industry sources. Using readily available tools, criminals can get into a VoIP system by hitting the server designed to connect traffic from an office's LAN to a network provider such as AT&T, which connects the calls to the rest of the world. Organizations could prevent a lot of these attacks by changing the port they use for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) connections on their VoIP systems, by blocking connections after a certain number of failures, and by simply using better passwords on their voice systems, security experts say.
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Call Centers
Each contact channel - phone, Web chat and email - requires a specific set of skills in order to deliver excellent member service. Some people are better at typing, spelling and grammar – these are the ones you will want responding to chats and emails; while others excel a verbal communications – these are the ones you will want working the phones. If you want to qualify employees or potential employees for the chat and email channels, you may want to consider FurstPerson’s 1stSolve assessment solution. This package focuses on verbal, math, logic, and reasoning skills and ability, and layers in additional screening, enabling credit union contact centers to select the very best candidates for positions requiring chat and writing skills.
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Call Centers Sponsored by
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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.
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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
May 19-21, Las Vegas - Credit Union InfoSecurity Conference
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