BANK tech-trends News
 

November 2, 2009 - November 6, 2009

• 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

Juniper Networks unveiled an armada of new gear, software, and chips, including processors that offer “3D Scaling.” In a nutshell, 3D Scaling is expected to allow for more subscribers, services, and bandwidth to be squeezed into the network. Juniper introduced new edge routers based on its software and new processors. Juniper claims that the systems, dubbed MX 3D, can provide up to 2.6 terabits per second with less power consumption. The MX 3D introductions include new line cards and two new routers.

Criticom Monitoring Services announced a new line of wireless video cameras. The Videofied product consists of a small, battery-operated camera and features GPRS technology, making video security available almost any location. Integrating cameras, illumination and motion sensors in a single, wireless device, the camera can send video clips of activity that causes an alarm directly to the CMS monitoring station as well as to a customer's cell phone or PDA. If an alarm is triggered, the wide angle camera records a 10-second video, and the video footage is simultaneously sent to the monitoring station and/or customer.

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ATMs/Kiosks

The Star Network announced a new prepaid card reload service for ATMs and point-of-sale locations. Star, which is owned by First Data, claims its load and reload service is the first one by an electronic funds transfer network and has a business-process patent pending on the system. The platform enables prepaid card issuers to offer their cardholders the ability to reload existing prepaid cards through a variety of options such as cash, check, or even funds transfers from demand deposit accounts.

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Sagem Sécurité made headlines at Biometrics 2009, the leading European trade show and exhibition dedicated to biometrics, by unveiling its new “Finger on the Fly” technology that reads fingerprints on a moving hand - “on the fly”. For the first time, the company claims that a contactless biometric recognition technology can capture and process the fingerprints from four fingers on a hand in movement, in just a few seconds.

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Monitise Americas announced that over 50 financial institutions have now signed up for its full service solution, which consists of real-time balance inquiries, mini-statements, account transfers, bill payments, same-day payments and more, delivered by a downloadable application, iPhone app or a secure browser. A further 100 financial institutions have signed up for its text services, which include weekly balance texts and account updates delivered via SMS. These financial institutions are accessing the Mobile Money Manager solution through their relationships with FIS and NYCE.

USAA, an Internet bank with just one branch, claims that approximately 14% of their more than 7 million global customers are using mobile banking. In addition to regular mobile banking features, USAA offers mobile remote deposit capture and both intra- and inter-FI person-to-person funds transfers. With a number of patents secured, USAA is now preparing to offer their software to other financial institutions.

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Symantec has updated its Data Loss Prevention Suite so that if the software finds a data issue that needs fixing, it can apply third party encryption and digital rights management controls to the problem. Symantec DLP Suite v. 10 adds what is called the "Flex-Response" capability to find sensitive data that has been left unprotected in the enterprise and apply security controls through encryption and DRM products from vendors such as PGP, Oracle, GigaTrust, Liquid Machines and Microsoft. Symantec is also publishing a set of open APIs and a software development kit (SDK) to facilitate support for security controls through additional products.

According to statistics from Dasient, the number of websites hosting malicious software, either intentionally or unwittingly, is rising rapidly. More than 640,000 websites and about 5.8 million pages are infected with malware, according to Dasient, which was founded by former Google employees to offer services to help websites stay malware-free and off blacklists.

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Core Systems:

Helping Banks Focus on Opportunities

Fidelity Information Services - http://www.fidelityinfoservices.com   Read Anthony Jabbour's comments:   http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/FIS.pdf

Fiserv - http://www.fiserv.com Read Fiserv's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Fiserv.pdf

Fiserv - http://www.opensolutions.com Read David Mitchell's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/OSI.pdf

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eVerge Group recently received recognition at this year’s Oracle Titan Award ceremony for their CRM solution designed specifically for financial institutions. Their CRM solution is designed to provide banks with the tools they need to improve their ability to understand their customers, coordinate selling and marketing activities and understand the effectiveness of their efforts in addition to the profitability of their customers. This solution set includes more than 130 predefined banking-specific data fields, banking-specific page layouts, embedded financial account analysis summaries, “out of the box” business process automation and preconfigured reports that are specific to financial institutions.

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Fiserv announced that CheckFree RXP, their online bill payment services platform, is being updated with features designed to increase consumer usage of online billing and payment. The new features, which include a bill pay widget, a tool for managing fee-based payments, and enhanced electronic bill activation and storage, are being deployed via "Feature Packs." The CheckFree RXP also includes overnight check payment option that meets a need for fast payment delivery to billers with which Fiserv does not have a direct electronic payment connection. Overnight check payments will incur a fee, which can be set by the bank.

Security vendor Trusteer issued a security advisory on a new Trojan called W32.Silon that bypasses security tokens, banking card readers and uses a two pronged payload to pilfer login information and commit online financial fraud. Meanwhile according to the FBI, cyber criminals have stolen at least $40 million from small to mid-sized companies across America via online banking fraud. The FBI is taking the unusual step of disseminating financial loss figures in order to grab the attention of those most at risk so that they can adopt safeguards.

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According to Gartner, distinctions between unified communications and collaboration will no longer exist by 2013. Though business end-users typically treat voice, messaging, conferencing, instant messaging, presence, applications, clients, social networks and collaboration tools as "point" applications, they will not do so in the future, the research firm predicts. They are convinced that in the next few years organizations will not have to deal with multiple products and vendors performing overlapping communications and collaboration functions.

A Toronto-based company called Route1 provides a secure telework environment without much overhead via MobiKEY, a user authentication device that looks like a thumb drive. Users simply insert this USB device into any Internet-enabled computer, type in their passwords, and they can securely pull up all of the applications and data from their desktops. MobiKEY works from home, a client’s office or even an Internet café. Route1 says that the MobiKEY device ensures that no trace of an end user’s session remains on the computer that is used, and it encrypts all communications between the computer and the desktop machine in the office. It can be integrated with other smart card technologies such as the U.S. federal government’s HSPD-12 identity cards. Route1 officials say MobiKEY is more secure than traditional VPNs, which can be a source of security breaches.

Zeus Technology unveiled the latest version of its software-based application traffic management technology, which is aimed at helping organizations more easily manage Web traffic. Zeus Traffic Manager 6.0 can operate across physical, virtual and cloud IT environments, and the vendor has added support for additional platforms to increase users’ deployment options.

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Interactive Intelligence and RightNow Technologies are partnering to offer an integrated contact center solution to help banks increase agent productivity and improve customer service. The companies are integrating RightNow’s Web-based “customer experience” software suite with Interactive Intelligence’s VoIP contact center platform. This integration will bring new features and capabilities to the RightNow agent desktop, including embedded call controls, screen-pop, multichannel queuing and routing, click-to-dial, and unified reporting. The combined solution also brings screen pops with detailed customer information to the agent desktop – using caller ID, a complete customer profile can be popped onto an agent’s screen the instant a customer dials in.

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