Bank tech-trends News
 

November 13 - November 17, 2006

• Hardware News
• Software Updates
• ATMs/Kiosks
• Biometric Digest Highlights
• Wireless World
• Security Section
• Leaders Roundtable
• Technology and Marketing
• Online Banking/E-Commerce/
  Website Design
• Internet Access
• Call Centers

Hardware News

IBM has begun selling its first servers with quad-core processors, utilizing Intel's "Clovertown" Xeon 5300 models. Big Blue announced five models, each with two processor sockets, and promised a significant performance increase over those systems with the dual-core Xeon 5100 "Woodcrest" processors. IBM's new servers include the following: 

• The x3650, a 3.5-inch-thick rack-mounted machine with a starting price of $2,419. 

• The x3550, a 1.75-inch-thick rack-mounted machine with a starting price of $2,369. 

• The x3500 and x3400 servers are free-standing tower models with starting prices of $2,189 and $3,049, respectively. 

• The HS21 is a blade server with a starting price of $3,049. 

Addmaster, a manufacturer of teller receipt and validation printers, announced the introduction of the ultra-compact MJ2000. The company claims that it is the first thermal-inkjet hybrid printer designed for financial institutions, and that it can print a typical receipt and validate a form in one second each. They say that it occupies a 34" square inch footprint which makes it the smallest receipt and validation printer on the market.

The Tornado is about the size of a deck of cards and includes two retractable USB cables. The device lets you quickly and easily connect two Windows PCs to create an instant network for the purpose of transferring files. The Tornado eliminates the need for special crossover Ethernet cabling, or any special software to perform quick file transfers. The system works automatically without any software to install, and there are no wizards or configuration necessary. It runs $60

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ATMs/Kiosks

NCR has launched a new “Complete Care” package that is targeted to banks with ATM networks in the range of 10 to 350 ATMs. With Complete Care, a personalized account support manager is assigned to work directly with the customer to monitor ATM channel performance, determine root cause of ATM downtime, review service performance reports with the customer on a monthly or quarterly basis, and provide ongoing support to maximize ATM uptime. Complete Care also includes First-Line Maintenance, Second-Line Maintenance, Cash Replenishment, and NCR’s Self-Service Diagnostics Gateway, which provides analytical service diagnostic metrics based on the performance of the customer’s ATM channel. 

NCR is also touting the benefits of their patented two-sided thermal printing which can be used for receipts, no-envelope deposit acknowledgements, statements, ATM coupons and customer surveys. They say that users can reduce costs, improve operational efficiency due to fewer roll changes, minimize environmental impact and enhance one-to-one marketing capabilities.

Wincor Nixdorf announced its ProView ATM monitoring, management and security software solution for banks looking to keep a close eye on their ATMs. ProView allows banks to see, in real-time, the status of their ATMs. The software automatically monitors an entire ATM network, and provides banks with a single point of distribution for software updates. Additionally, ProView allows for remote diagnostics and troubleshooting, and has features such as ticketing, file distribution and transfers, cash level monitoring, asset management, remote rebooting, and providing statistics and reports.

Looking to increase Brand Recognition and provide members with surcharge free ATMs?

Nationwide Money Services, Inc.’s Branded Cash Program is the answer. Fully endorsed by the VA Credit Union League and the CU 24 Network, our Branded Cash Program provides the ATM equipment, great locations, processing, maintenance, insurance, marketing rights and surcharge free transactions for your members, you only provide the cash and cash services for the ATM just as you would if you owned them. The ATMs look and act like your own, extending your reach or filling out your current market.

Our current CU partners include: AEDC, Beacon, Bronco, Carolina Collegiate, Educators, Freedom First, Food Lion Credit Association, Heritage Trust, Martinsville Dupont, NSWC, Old Hickory, Peoples Advantage, Southeast Financial and US Courthouse.

NMS also offers their ‘ATMs Made Easy’ Program for full service ATM management and placement services if you like the idea of having ATMs, but don’t want the hassle of day to day management and the associated costs for maintenance and unplanned expenses like triple DES.

For more information about the Branded Cash Program contact Bob Colabrese, EVP of Sales & Marketing at:

904-395-1147 or

bob.colabrese@GLXS.biz

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BIO-key International and Living Software have partnered to release SafeLive, a software product that secures e-mail with fingerprint biometrics. The product interfaces with Microsoft Outlook or can be used with a variety of e-mail products, including web-based systems. The e-mail sender 'signs' and encrypts the message being sent by scanning their finger. When the message is delivered, it can only be decrypted and opened by the designated recipient(s) with their fingerprint(s), to assure the identity of both the sender and receiver.

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CheckFree and Firethorn announced an exclusive partnership agreement to deliver mobile banking and bill payment services to banks. The firms say that Firethorn's downloadable application supports virtually any cell phone or mobile device, and that the mobile banking and payments solution will enable customers to use their mobile devices to view account balances, check credit card balances, transfer funds between accounts, and receive and pay household bills. 

With 225 million mobile American subscribers, mobile phones are more pervasive than the Internet and readily available at any time, which according to ClairMail makes mobile phones ideal for solving the multi-factor authentication problem. The ClairMail system utilizes the mobile phone’s text messaging functionality as the means to authenticate online banking sessions by automatically sending a time-expiring, one-time-PIN (OTP) to the customer’s mobile phone (the second factor) and the customer enters the OTP while online to validate the session. Alternatively, an out-of-band mobile verification can be used when either online or offline at-risk transactions are performed. For example, the creation of a new bill-pay payee or an unusual transfer, payment, credit card or check transaction would cause an alert to be sent to the customer’s mobile phone. A text reply from the customer is used to acknowledge or request additional information pertaining to the transaction. 

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According to a Gartner report, people with high incomes attract more phishing e-mails and lose more money to them than other Internet users. In the past year, individuals who earn more than $100,000 per year received an average of 112 phishing e-mails, the research firm said. For users in all income brackets, the figure was 74 phishing e-mails. While high-income users tended to click on bogus links less than others, their losses were greater when they were duped, the study noted. They lost an average of $4,362 per incident - four times higher than people in other income categories. The Gartner report said 109 million U.S. adults were subjected to phishing e-mails this year, up from 79 million last year.

They are called sandbox or virtualized applications and they are popping up all over the place to help protect your computer while you surf the Internet. They use various mechanisms to prevent malware from infecting or modifying your computer while you browse the Web, read e-mail, or use other forms of Internet-based communications. However, they are not foolproof by any means. We will cover how well they work – or don’t work - in the upcoming issue of BANK tech-trends - subscribe today.

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Stay Tuned for Upcoming Leaders Roundtables! 

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Cognos, a business intelligence and performance management solutions provider, has unveiled business performance software that it says helps banks get the most out of their customer data. The new Customer Segment Performance Blueprint lets marketing managers tap into customer information to analyze behavior, revenue streams, and profitability by customer or groups of customers. The analytics can then be used to target, plan, track, and measure new sales and marketing initiatives. In addition, the software's initiative-planning capabilities help managers choose the most profitable products to promote within a customer segment, identify effective means of reaching customers, and provide simulations across multiple marketing initiatives to help choose the one with the highest predicted success. 

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Gemalto has introduced an innovative end-to-end solution for secure Internet design of personalized plastic cards. Gemalto's CardLikeMe allows users to upload a picture of their choice on the bank's website to create a unique personal card. As part of the offering, Gemalto provides banks with the software solution required for processing the photograph on their website and ensures complete card personalization and fulfillment. Once the picture is loaded on the bank's website, users can visualize the card appearance in real time and adjust the photograph. The image is approved by the bank before the order is placed. Users also may choose pictures offered in an online gallery.

The TowerGroup is predicting substantial growth in small business credit cards - spending will jump from $215 billion in 2005 to $428 billion by 2009. However, 71% of business credit card accounts are paid in full after every month which means that banks may want to market the use of debit cards so that they can receive some revenue from interchange fees. TowerGroup noted that small business owners are looking for card reward programs that help their businesses (e.g., discounted loans) rather than provide them with personal benefits (e.g., airline miles or merchandise). They also note that cards that enable detailed tracking and reporting of expenses are important to small businesses.

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Internet Access

Australian vendor Exinda Networks has entered the U.S. application acceleration market promising to provide branch office WAN (wide area network) optimization appliances at lower prices than some of it U.S. competitors. The Exinda 1700 appliance, priced at about $1,000, handles speeds up to 2Mbps and is able to increase data speeds between data center and branch office appliances by up to 400% for remote users. The company recently upgraded the 1700 to the high-bandwidth 1700-10, which increases the speed of the 1700 appliance series from 2Mbps to 10Mbps. The Exinda 1700-10Mbps version costs about $2,000.

Network congestion can be a problem for data networks, but it is unacceptable for Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) implementations. Network bottlenecks can cause more than just a slowdown — they can result in severe quality VoIP issues such as unintelligible conversations and dropped calls. We will cover network congestion problems and explain how traffic shaping techniques can be used to alleviate them in the upcoming issue of BANK tech-trends - subscribe now.

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Call Centers

The XSell Customer Service Marketing Platform is similar to a CRM (customer relationship management) system, but much more focused: it helps MSRs become salespeople by giving them desktop information about the customer on the other end of the phone, including previous offers, so when a customer calls, the agent can cross-sell in a smart and targeted manner. In addition to contact centers, the XSell platform supports interactive voice response systems and websites. 

EGain Communications, a company that develops customer service and contact center software for in-house or hosted deployment, announced the release of its customer interaction hub (CIH) software suite. The suite includes nine new applications. EGain Service 7.6 combines management and process automation tools, and now supports short message service (SMS) customer service interactions, as well as next-generation web self-service, chat, co-browsing, email, fax, postal mail, notification management, call tracking and resolution, knowledge management, and service fulfillment.

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