BANK tech-trends News
 

July 28 - August 1, 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

Two classes of tape storage are jumping to higher densities: Hewlett-Packard and Sony announced a coming generation of Digital Audio Tape (DAT) media with twice the capacity of the current technology and a higher transfer speed. The next generation of DAT, called DAT 320, will be able to hold 320GB of data on one cartridge. The new technology will also allow for back up from disks at speeds as high as 86GB per hour with 2:1 data compression.

Dell just unveiled its data center-hosted desktop product line which is a 2U box called the Dell Precision R5400 Rack Workstation. Dell also announced the new Dell FX100 remote access device, which is a small, fan-less client device that is meant to be used at the employee’s desk to access an R5400. Dell intends for there to be a 1-to-1 ratio between the R5400s and the FX100s, which do PC-over-IP including hardware-based encryption, compression, decompression and decryption.

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ATMs/Kiosks

Creative Card Solutions is working with Fiserv EFT to place financial institution-labeled ATMs whose transactions are processed by Fiserv EFT around the country. The Temecula, CA-based company plans on placing 2,000 ATMs in 2008. The firm recently worked Highlands Independent Bank in Florida and Bridgehampton National Bank in New York to place machines that are surcharge free to their customers.

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Banks in Europe and South Africa are testing a device that authenticates online transactions by asking users to run their fingerprint over a reader. If the print matches a stored copy, the device, which is made by Siemens, a German firm, and AXSionics, a Swiss firm, shows a PIN code that can then confirm the transaction. It also allows people to designate a panic finger, for use if fraudsters are forcing them to use the device; plus the scanner has to detect circulating blood to work.  

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The Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, and Consumer Action recently wrote a letter to the Federal Trade Commission asserting that the privacy and security challenges of contactless payments should be tackled before consumers adopt contactless payment systems. The consumer groups warned that the integration of contactless payment systems with mobile phones could facilitate the capture of location information, which could be exploited in proximity marketing and consumer profiling. The consumer proponents also argued that payments should not be authenticated without the provision of passwords or PIN numbers. Some contactless proponents argue that this would negate the 'swipe and go' convenience of using the contactless technology.

Forrester has published a new report titled "Consumers Are Apathetic About Mobile Banking". The report's summary states: "online bankers and bill payers are uninterested in the mobile banking pitch. ... Why? Online bankers and bill payers don't see their transactions as urgent enough to warrant mobile access. Instead, they prefer to wait until they can access the Web, ATM, or phone channel." 

A new free service called Slydial allows you can place a call from any U.S. mobile or landline phone to any other U.S. cellular number and be routed directly to voice mail. However, depending on the phone being used and the service provider, call recipients may not see a missed-call icon or a record in their call logs after receiving a message from Slydial users. Additionally, the recipient's caller ID function needs to be activated on users' phones for Slydial to work.

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The Intrepidus Group has released PhishMe which is a software package that is designed to help prevent damage, theft and loss caused by targeted (spear) phishing attacks. PhishMe facilitates and automates the execution of mock phishing exercises, provides detailed reporting on user behavior, and provides targeted end user training. Using PhishMe’s built-in templates and WYSIWYG functionality, IT Departments can build phishing attacks against employees within minutes, collect metrics on user behavior, and immediately present training material to employees that fall prey to the bogus emails. 

In a related story, Trusteer announced that its Rapport product has been enhanced with a real-time cloud-based Phishing protection service that they say reduces fraud and asset theft if account data is stolen. The new service alerts online businesses when their customers access a malicious website so the account can be suspended and assets protected. 

According to a new study by ScanSafe, malware has risen by a staggering 278 percent in the first half of 2008. The ScanSafe Global Threat report is a study of more than 60 billion Web requests that ScanSafe has scanned, as well as 600 million Web threats it has blocked in 2008. ScanSafe says the increasing numbers of attacks on legitimate websites can be blamed on automated attack tools, which became freely available in the last months of 2007. The report found that increases in Web-based malware was in part due to large websites being compromised in June by SQL injection attacks.

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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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Fiserv announced that its Customer Value Enhancement (CVE) group will provide banking specific configurations that utilize the Microsoft Dynamics Customer Relationship Management (CRM) 4.0 platform for its consumer, commercial and small business, private and wealth banking segments. Fiserv CVE has created role-based customizable templates covering informational needs, management dashboards and best practice processes, which will be embedded into the Microsoft Dynamics platform.

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According to a study by the University of Michigan, many online banking websites contain fundamental design flaws that could put online bankers at risk from cyber thieves. Some online banking websites make the following mistakes:

- place secure login boxes on insecure pages

- put contact information and security advice on insecure pages

- use social security numbers or e-mail addresses as user IDs

- don't state a policy on passwords or allow weak passwords

- use e-mail to send passwords or statements 

- redirect users to a site outside of their domain for certain transactions without warning

Yodlee announced that Yodlee PayToday is now available as a revenue generating addition to any financial institution's online banking website. PayToday is an expedited payments solution that Yodlee says can generate new fee revenue for banks by offering their customers the convenience of guaranteed, same-day electronic payments to hundreds of national and regional billers across multiple biller categories, including: credit cards, mortgage, auto finance, insurance, utilities, cable and wireless.

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Internet Access

Virtual private networks (VPNs) are well established as essential tools for corporate communications, and Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS) VPNs are quickly becoming the norm. Within the next 18 months there will be more MPLS VPN connections than frame relay connections in the United States, according to Vertical Systems Group. MPLS VPN services offer fully meshed networks as a matter of course - any site connects to any other site. To try and accomplish the same thing with frame relay means expensive virtual circuits laid out between every site and every other site. MPLS also supports multiple qualities of service at varying prices to give business customers options to buy less-expensive VPN services for less-critical traffic. The bottom line is that MPLS lets organizations shed complexity and cost. 

A company called Bomgar offers their Bomgar Box for remote desktop access. The Bomgar Box is a secure platform for virtualizing support, and works through corporate firewalls enabling remote desktop connections to attended or unattended Windows, Linux, and Mac computers. It supports screen sharing or a command line interface and every remote desktop connection is protected with 256-bit AES SSL encryption.

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Call Centers

Zeacom is a global provider of unified communications solutions with a customer base of more than 2500 small and midsized organizations in 25 countries. Traditionally Zeacom has sold their software-based solution as two products, with one targeted to the contact center and the other to meet messaging needs in the enterprise. However as unified communications platforms have converged and become more popular, the feature set for Zeacom’s core product has evolved into one software platform that can deliver both a suite of specialized contact center and enterprise-wide unified communications functionality. In other words, call center functionality is now coming to every employee within an organization.

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