BANK tech-trends News
 

June 2 - June 6, 2008

• 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 is releasing three new rack servers built on Advanced Micro Devices' quad-core processors. The systems, beginning with the x3455 - a two-socket system with up to 48GB of memory - are aimed at users of financial applications. Pricing for the x3455 starts at $1,809. The x3655 model, also a two-socket model, can accommodate up to 64GB memory and starts at $2,499. The third model, x3755, has up to four sockets and 128GB of memory, and pricing begins at $3,407. 

A company called Jatheon Technologies is targeting financial institutions that want to bring e-mail archiving in-house with their “Plug n Comply” e-mail archiving appliance. The Plug n Comply appliance is a scalable, turnkey solution for managing e-mail, including instant messaging and e-mail attachments, according to the vendor. 

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ATMs/Kiosks

German ATM manufacturer Wincor Nixdorf announced that it has surpassed Diebold in global ATM deliveries. In 1994, Wincor Nixdorf was twelfth in global ATM shipments. Now according to figures from Retail Banking Research, the recently third-ranked global ATM deployer has moved into the number two position behind NCR.

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An Accenture survey of American and British Web surfers revealed that younger online bankers are more likely to leave their financial institutions in the event of a security breach. In fact, 43% of U.S. consumers ages 18 to 34 would close their accounts right away. To protect their data and identities, many people in the survey responded positively to the use of biometrics. About half of the survey participants who transport their laptops outside of work or home said that they would be interested in a fingerprint reader - provided their financial institutions supplied the device.

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Soprano Design, a provider of mobile applications, is partnering with TynTec, a vendor of mobile-messaging services, to offer banks a text-transmission and mobile-banking solution. Soprano’s mobile finance product, the SOPRANO Mobile Financial Suite, includes text banking, mobile banking, two-factor authentication, mobile payments, and stored-value functionality for person-to-person payments.

The latest figures from IMS Research show the combined forecasts for users of contactless mobile payments, mobile banking and over the air (OTA) transactions will reach 884 million in 2012. This is the cumulative number of users expected to adopt new technologies, platforms and services who are expected to complete 62 billion transactions between them in that year.

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SonicWALL announced the SonicWALL Network Security Appliance (NSA) 2400 for small and mid-sized organizations and branch offices. The company says that the NSA 2400 brings the next generation of Unified Threat Management (UTM) to organizations with less than 100 employees. It includes the Reassembly Free Deep Packet Inspection 8 engine, which uses multicore design to efficiently inspect both inbound and outbound network traffic. It also includes data leakage capabilities and provides granular application control that can be set per user, e-mail user, per schedule and per IP subnet levels. 

In a related story, eEye Digital Security has released their Retina Appliance 651. The Retina appliance monitors network traffic and suspicious activity, and then recommends solutions for stopping or minimizing the impact of unauthorized access. The device also includes eEye Blink Professional intrusion detection and the Iris Network Traffic Analyzer. Pricing for the eEye Retina Appliance 651 begins at $2,495. 

Microsoft Office documents often include data that can compromise your privacy or that you don't want others to see, such as hidden text or cells, document revision history, names of document authors and reviewers, etc. When you send someone a document, they can easily see that information by viewing the version history and the document's properties, and in other ways. A company by the name of Unedged Software wants to help with this problem. Whenever you send PowerPoint, Excel or Word documents via Outlook, their SendShield software examines them to see if they contain private information. It then details what it finds and lets you remove the information with a single click. It deletes the information only from the copy of the file you send via e-mail, not the original on your hard disk. 

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Online Banking:

Online Banking... Catering to Your Most Desirable Customers

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

Exstream - http://www.exstream.com   Read Jerry Driscoll's comments:   http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Exstream.pdf

Microsoft - http://www.microsoft.com Read Marley Gray's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Microsoft.pdf

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

Piraeus Bank - http://www.piraeusbank.gr   Read Sotiris Sirmakezis' comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Piraeus.pdf

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

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According to a senior economist with the Bank of Chicago, the life span of a dollar bill has increased from 18 months to 22 months over the past few years. This can be somewhat attributed to the fact that people are using fewer of them in favor of five and 10 dollar denominations. United States currency is made from cloth rather than paper - 25 percent linen and 75 percent cotton. Meanwhile, a $100 note still lasts about 10 years since so few people have or use them. 

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Yodlee and Q2 Software announced a partnership to enhance Q2's electronic banking platform with personal financial management and bill pay capabilities from Yodlee. The integrated Yodlee PersonalFinance and Yodlee BillPay components will be available for all Q2 customers as value-added features. Yodlee PersonalFinance is a PFM application that helps automate financial tasks, and Yodlee BillPay is a next generation online bill pay solution.

Pittsburgh-based startup Dynamics LLC is developing a "Dynamic Credit Card," which they claim is a wafer thin card with an electronic display that periodically changes several digits of the card number, making it impossible for anyone to capture or copy the number and reuse it. They say that number theft accounts for 40% of all credit card theft, and that their design retains the size, shape and feel of a standard card.

ING Direct, the direct banking business of Dutch group ING, is offering its online bankers free anti-phishing software from Internet security outfit Trusteer. The online bank is offering the Rapport application - which is designed to protect against phishing, pharming, keylogging, session hijacking, man in the middle and man in the browser attacks - as a free download from its site. 

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Internet Access

Cox Communications and Nortel announced they will partner to offer premises-based equipment to the business market. Cable operators have been targeting the small business market for years, and in particular they are beginning to expand business-grade VoIP offers. Now Cox Communications has become the first cable operator to offer small business market business-class premises equipment with its network services. 

By placing callers in a queue, as opposed to sending them to voicemail when an employee is occupied with other customers, a new feature of the Packet8 Virtual Office small business service is designed to help banks accept more calls throughout the day. The company says that the new Call Queuing feature helps price sensitive micro and small-sized business seem much larger in a cost efficient manner.

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Call Centers

High quality headsets are an essential tool for contact center environments. Selecting the right headset calls for answering various questions such as:

- Single Ear Cup vs. Dual? 
- Noise cancelling vs. Omni? 
- Neckband vs. Headband?

It can be a difficult choice with so many options, but some headset manufacturers allow you to take a "test drive" before you buy. For example, Sennheiser USA will send a headset directly to your contact center for testing purposes.

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