Bank tech-trends News
 

September 11 - 15, 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

ProStor Systems Inc. has developed a tape-like cartridge that really has a disk inside it - and it has longer media life and better shock-absorption characteristics than tape cartridges. ProStor's RDX system uses rugged disk cartridges that can be used to back up over 125 GB of data in an hour, retrieve files in milliseconds, and archive data for over a decade. The firm claims that their system is 10 times more reliable at retrieving archived data than tape drives, and offers the only removable hard disk solution to actually replace tape in all backup and archival applications.

Sunbelt Software's LanHound is a network analyzer that captures and decodes network traffic between systems and devices. The tool lets you view network communications in plain English rather than binary language. Viewing specific packet details shows exactly what's happening in your network, and the tool's Packet Capture and Packet Decode features help you isolate problems. LanHound also includes network-monitoring functionality, letting you view network statistics and trend information.

Some notebook manufacturers like Samsung and Sony are beginning to replace traditional hard disks with solid-state disks (SSD). Compared to units with hard drives, SSD-outfitted notebooks boot up and run faster, are quieter and use less power. For example, Samsung claims that its SSD laptops will boot up 50% faster. Right now the units sell for a few hundred dollars more, but should come down in price fairly quickly.

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ATMs/Kiosks

While some ATM deployers have recently used Global Positioning Systems (GPS) to recover stolen ATMs, analysts say that their high cost is preventing many deployers from using them. While consumer-level GPS systems have really fallen in price, those for ATMs usually run around $1,200 to $2,000. Technology is also drawback - if the unit does not have a clear view to a satellite, the signal won't get through. To circumvent this problem, "assisted GPS" uses existing cellular networks to send signals to cellular towers or bases, which then transmit the signal to a satellite. ATM manufacturer Wincor Nixdorf is one vendor that offers an assisted GPS-type of technology. Just about everyone agrees that once GPS pricing comes down and the technology improves, GPS adoption will take off.

Japan's Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank is introducing slot machine-style games to its ATMs which will give ATM users the chance to win back surcharges or around $10 in cash. Users can play the games by hitting a button on the ATM screen during the "Please Wait" times. Ogaki Kyoritsu told reporters the games will enable customers to enjoy "a little excitement" while waiting for an ATM to process transactions.

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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Diebold is partnering with US Biometrics to deliver a fingerprint scanning system to banks. The identiCenter product is an integrated system for identity verification and branch traffic management. The IdentiCenter system links a customer's identity and account information to their unique fingerprint profile. It can be used at the teller station, or allow customers to "check in" upon entering the branch by verifying their identity and selecting transaction options before reaching the teller.

Digimarc Corporation recently announced enhancements to their biometric identification solution. The new version, Digimarc Biometric Identification 2.0, provides tools for license issuers and investigators to aid in the prevention of identity theft. Using facial recognition biometrics, the solution scans the face of those applying for driver's licenses against a database of others in that jurisdiction to ensure they have not already been issued a license or of they are eligible to receive one. The solution is already being used in Massachusetts - Oregon and Texas both have plans to also implement the system.

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The number of contactless devices has nearly doubled in the last year and will capture 15% of the prime market by 2011, according to research firm Celent. However, they note that some significant hurdles must still be cleared before mass deployment is successful. These include: 1) consumers may be uncomfortable with new technology or may have security concerns; 2) merchants must be convinced of the benefits of accepting contactless payments; and 3) hesitation among many issuers must be overcome.

BankServ Inc., a 10-year-old private company that processes automated clearing house and wire transfer transactions, is now into the person-to-person payments business, including P2P payments on cell phones, with their purchase of Magex. Bankserv’s intention is to bring the Magex mobile-payments product, now in use overseas, to the U.S. market.

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There are many tools on the market that are designed to protect corporate databases. Although some vendors offer more than one product, most organizations will want to work with more than one vendor to create an in-depth defense that includes control and authentication, vulnerability scanning, data access monitoring and encryption. We will cover all of these options in the upcoming issue of BANK tech-trends - subscribe now and get the full story.

Juniper Networks NetScreen firewall is getting high marks among some security analysts. The firewall comes with VPN (virtual private network) and UTM (unified threat management) capabilities. Anti-Virus, Anti-Adware, Anti-Phishing, Anti-Spam, and Web Filtering are additional optional features. Plus any firewall rule can be enabled or disabled immediately with a single mouse click. Finally, the NetScreen’s documentation and technical support are often rated top notch.

Spreadsheets are often the most common method used to analyze corporate data and are increasingly used as a front-end to more advanced BI (business intelligence) systems. This means that sensitive data is often stored in spreadsheets. Some organizations are taking steps to protect this data by building portals that use directory services like Microsoft's Active Directory to determine which spreadsheets or reports can be accessed by specific users. Actuate Corp. is an enterprise reporting and performance management applications vendor that offers their Actuate Spreadsheet Application Platform development tool to prevent users from changing cells within a spreadsheet. The tool also permits an organization to prevent users from directly accessing a database to try to build reports without permission. Their new Actuate 9 enterprise reporting suite, which is scheduled to ship later this year, will allow a company to fine-tune spreadsheet security so that users will be limited to which portions of a spreadsheet they can see, based upon their roles in the company.

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ONLINE BANKING: 

Expanding the Channel with Convenience and Security

The Boston Consulting Group - http://www.bcg.com   Read Carl Rutstein's comments: http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/BCG.pdf

Corillian - http://www.corillian.com   Read Alex Hart's comments:   http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/Corillian.pdf

Digital Resolve - http://www.digital-resolve.net   Read Dennis Maicon's comments:     http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/DigitalResolve.pdf

Green Armor Solutions - http://www.greenarmor.com   Read Joseph Steinberg's comments:    http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/GreenArmor.pdf

Harland Financial Solutions - http://www.harlandfinancialsolutions.com   Read Peter Nguyen's comments: http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/HFS.pdf

Hewlett-Packard - http://www.hp.com   Read Charles Gowin's comments:     http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/HP.pdf

Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com Read Russ Paul-Jones' comments: http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/Microsoft.pdf

Online Resources Corporation - http://www.orcc.com   Read Stephanie Chaufournier's comments:   http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/ORCC.pdf

Open Solutions - http://www.opensolutions.com   Read Michael D. Nicastro's comments: http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/OSI.pdf

ProfitStars - http://www.manageforperformance.com   Read David Foss' comments:   http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/ProfitStars.pdf

TriCipher - http://www.tricipher.com   Read Sally Sheward's comments:   http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/TriCipher.pdf

uMonitor - http://www.umonitor.com   Read Dinesh Sheth's comments:   http://www.cunews.com/roundtable/uMonitor.pdf

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Kyliptix Solutions announced the release of its KiBS CRM (customer relationship management) application. KiBS CRM is the first application offered within the Kyliptix Integrated Business Suite (KiBS) designed specifically for small- and mid-sized business. The company says that they use core technology built on their secure next generation server environment using Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (LAMP), and the Ajax methodology, and that it can readily serve the needs of a few users, then scale to accommodate several hundred users at a time.

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Card Web is reporting that the effect of higher minimum payments is clearly showing up in credit card industry data as monthly payment rates, the amount that cardholders pay on their credit card debt, continues to hover at record levels. Year to date, the monthly payment rate has averaged 20%, running well over 200 basis points from one year ago. The higher payments are lowering card profits for issuers and making it increasingly difficult for some consumers to meet their minimum payments. For example, cardholders with interest rates above 20% have been dealing with payments that have doubled since last year.

With the "deadline" of January 1st, 2007 looming for multifactor authentication, many banks are quite nervous about what type of system that they should implement. Some analysts believe that the FFIEC wants technology in place by that date, while others in the industry are convinced that the guidelines do not explicitly state that a financial institution must purchase and implement a technology solution by year-end. They argue that banks must simply complete a risk assessment and begin risk mitigation activities by year-end 2006. Either way, the decision of which technology to implement is an important one and should not be taken lightly. We will cover some of the key points to consider in the upcoming issue of BANK tech-trends - subscribe today.

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Internet Access

The market for VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) has been driven by a number of factors. While price is one of them, there are a number of business benefits to using VoIP, which have contributed to its growth:

* It gives employees the geographic independence to work from their homes
* VoIP has greater technological longevity than PSTN (public switched telephone network) – with VoIP, there will not be the need to migrate for a very long time, whereas the figure is likely to drop to 5-10 years for PSTN
* VoIP is ‘future-ready’; new technologies such as video, are designed to be integrated with VoIP and not PSTN

With the convergence of voice and data networks comes new security vulnerabilities. The NetIQ VoIP Security Solution is designed to defend your IP telephony infrastructure, protecting voice and data environments. The product protects your network from the most worrisome threat scenarios, including Denial of Service (DoS) attacks, viruses, eavesdropping, and toll fraud. It lets you monitor your VoIP environment in real time to detect security threats, correlate and log security events for audits, automate alert notification on possible attacks, and perform forensic reporting to analyze call usage patterns to spot abuse.

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Call Centers

When it comes to advanced communications technology, smaller organizations are catching up to their larger brethren. For example, Works Out Software’s CallButler is an automated telephone answering machine that the company says is one of the fastest and easiest to implement on the market. Auto-attendant features include features like the Visual Call Flow Designer, used to modify call pathways and menus. It also offers multilingual support, call personalization and find me/follow me capabilities. The system is also capable of routing incoming calls to any legacy system, from PBX to a pod, desktop or mobile phone. Finally, the system is integrated into Microsoft Office so the firm claims that it can be installed in minutes without any new equipment or telephone lines.

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