BANK tech-trends News
 

November 16, 2009 - November 20, 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

A "PC on a stick" is a USB drive that is loaded with the user's desktop and that drive can recreate that desktop on multiple machines. The drive is encrypted, so a misplaced drive would result simply in the loss of a $15 device. VMware's USB tool called the Assured Computing Environment contains a virtualized machine running an operating system and applications and storing files. Even if it is loaded on a PC infected with malware, the drive operates in its own protected environment.

Dell announced the launch of three new workgroup printers, including what it says is the world’s fastest single-function letter size color laser printer. The 5130cdn has a rated print speed of up to 47 single-side and 37.6 double-side LTR pages per minute, in both monochrome and color. The Dell 5130cdn is available for $1,549. Dell also announced its first LED color printer with tabloid-size printing capability: the 7130cdn at $2,799. Finally, Dell announced a new single-function monochrome laser printer, the 3330dn at $599.

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ATMs/Kiosks

Allpoint Network, the first surcharge-free ATM network in the United States to offer iPhone and Android applications for locating surcharge-free ATMs, has released a BlackBerry application, which means that they now offer ways to find surcharge-free ATMs to more than 85 percent of the smart phone market. The new app joins a 24-hour speech phone system, a mobile Web-friendly locator, and GPS-download functionality for Allpoint website search results.

Nautilus Hyosung exhibited their "automatic tilting screen" for their 7600D drive-up ATM at the recent BAI Retail Delivery Conference. The ATM manufacturer also showed their 7600 full-function lobby ATM model, which features envelope-free BNA and BCA deposit functionality.

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Sagem Orga is rolling out their new Direct-to-Card fingerprint technology that they claim will guarantee maximum privacy for users when employees access sensitive user information such as financial reports. With Direct-to-Card fingerprint technology, the user's biometrics are kept confidential between his or her own smart card and the biometric sensors and never pass through the user's workstation.

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According to Juniper Research, One in six mobile users is expected to own a near field communications (NFC)-capable device by 2014. The research firm said in a new report that NFC adoption will be driven initially by transport ticketing services, followed by retail payment services. The firm notes that stickers that turn any phone into an NFC-capable device could help boost uptake until phones with embedded NFC technology become widely available. Case in point: Giesecke & Devrient is providing the Convego Air Mobile which is a sticker that enables the user to pay contactlessly. The sticker contains the full functionality of a credit or debit card. Once the thin and pliable foil has been affixed to a cellphone or PDA the device can be used to pay bills at all cash terminals and ticket machines supporting the worldwide contactless MasterCard PayPass standard.

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WhiteHat Security's recently released Website Security Statistics reveal a mostly unchanged list of the top 10 vulnerabilities - cross-site scripting (XSS) is still the most prevalent vulnerability. WhiteHat found that 83 percent of the scanned websites have had at least one serious vulnerability - meaning either high, critical, or urgent as defined by PCI-DSS - and 64 percent currently harbor at least one serious vulnerability. The top 10 vulnerabilities are XSS (66 percent); information leakage (49 percent); content spoofing (31 percent); insufficient authorization (19 percent); SQL injection (18 percent); predictable resource location (14 percent); cross-site request forgery (12 percent); session fixation (12 percent); HTTP response splitting (10 percent); and abuse of functionality (9 percent).

Security specialist Giesecke & Devrient has developed an interactive feature known as FEEL-ID, which they say systematically combines multiple security technologies in order to achieve maximum protection against counterfeiting. FEEL-ID is a feature that reacts to changes in temperature by utilizing the thermochromic properties of the materials employed. Identity documents such as national ID cards, driver's licenses and passports can be authenticated rapidly and reliably using techniques as simple as rubbing them with your finger. The basis of FEEL-ID is STEP, a semi-transparent, optically variable special-effect ink incorporating a three-dimensional structure. Two different colors can be seen depending on the viewing angle, and neither the change in color nor the optical 3-D effect can be copied.

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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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Equifax announced the launch of a new solution to help banks drive increased return-on-investment from their portfolio review processes. InterConnect for Account Management enables banks to automate account segmentation and risk decisioning for credit line adjustments and cross-sell offers. The software provides a consolidated look at each customer within the portfolio and segments these customers based on behavioral and transactional data from Equifax, third-party sources and internal databases. Equifax says that their system automates account-level decisions for:

• Credit line assignments
• Exception handling and compliance reporting
• Implementation of new risk policies
• Cross-sell and product optimization

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NetDeposit announced that its NetCapture Branch product is now available in an application service provider environment. The firm says that this affordable branch capture alternative is available to banks that may not have the budget or resources to implement this technology in-house. The goal is to eliminate the burden of traditional Day One proof, item repair and balancing within their operation, and lower courier fees.

In 2006, counterfeit fraud in Canada on debit and credit totaled almost $250 million, so in response card issuers began rolling out chip-based debit and credit cards. Now Moneris Solutions, Canada's largest payment processor, has research that shows that "merchants who process chip card transactions are experiencing fewer chargebacks than ever before due to increased security and fraud detection. This is the first data of its kind from Canada and demonstrates that chip cards reduce fraud and chargebacks."

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Avistar Communications announced an addition to its family of Avistar C3 software solutions: the Avistar C3 Unified - Microsoft OCS Edition. The firm says that their solution picks up where Microsoft OCS leaves off by extending Microsoft OCS and delivering a desktop visual communications experience that is feature-rich and interoperable. The Avistar C3 Unified – Microsoft OCS Edition solution is designed to deliver a business-class desktop videoconferencing experience and enable a direct interoperability between desktop video solutions and SIP- and H.323- enabled room solutions. The solution also supports presence multiparty videoconferencing and HD (720p) video resolution, and utilizes Microsoft OCS presence and desktop integration features.

Cybercriminals have found a new launching pad for their scams: the phone systems of small and midsized businesses. Attacks on one of the most popular VoIP systems, called Asterisk, are now "endemic," according to some industry sources. Using readily available tools, criminals can get into a VoIP system by hitting the server designed to connect traffic from an office's LAN to a network provider such as AT&T, which connects the calls to the rest of the world. Organizations could prevent a lot of these attacks by changing the port they use for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) connections on their VoIP systems, by blocking connections after a certain number of failures, and by simply using better passwords on their voice systems, security experts say.

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Each contact channel - phone, Web chat and email - requires a specific set of skills in order to deliver excellent customer service. Some people are better at typing, spelling and grammar – these are the ones you will want responding to chats and emails; while others excel a verbal communications – these are the ones you will want working the phones. If you want to qualify employees or potential employees for the chat and email channels, you may want to consider FurstPerson’s 1stSolve assessment solution. This package focuses on verbal, math, logic, and reasoning skills and ability, and layers in additional screening, enabling bank contact centers to select the very best candidates for positions requiring chat and writing skills.

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