BANK tech-trends News
 

July 6, 2009 - July 10, 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

Lenovo announced its latest line of ThinkServers, comprising the TD200 and TD200x tower servers and the RD210 and RD220 rack servers. The new servers are intended for small to mid-sized businesses and are “up to three times faster” than their predecessors, the company says. The increased performance is the result of the use of Intel Xeon 5500 Series processors and up to 128GB of DDR3 memory. The rack models have up to 12 hard drive bays and the towers have up to 16 bays. The new ThinkServers are virtualization-ready and are equipped with an onboard connector for an embedded hypervisor. Microsoft, Novell, VMWare and Red Hat are all supported.

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ATMs/Kiosks

Juniper Networks has cancelled a presentation about a flaw in ATM software that one of its researchers was scheduled to give at the Black Hat security conferences, after the ATM vendor complained. In his presentation entitled "Jackpotting Automated Teller Machines," Barnaby Jack was planning to discuss local and remote attack vectors on ATMs and provide a live demonstration of an attack on an unmodified ATM. The unidentified manufacturer called for more time to protect financial institution customers from the vulnerability.

According to a new research study conducted by IHL Group, North American consumers continue to embrace self-service technology, as transactions at self-service kiosks will surpass $775 billion in 2009. The study also forecasts the number to grow to over $1.6 trillion by 2013. "Most consumers have adapted to self-service as a way of life," said Lee Holman, lead retail analyst of the IHL Group. "The current recession is actually increasing the acceptance of the technologies, as they are a hedge against increasing labor expenses during a tough economic climate. They allow companies to schedule their workforce for high-volume periods without sacrificing service during non-peak times."

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So-called third-party checks represent a potentially lucrative niche market for remote deposit capture, and now biometric-authentication vendor AllTrust Networks has been granted a patent for a process by which such checks can be authorized and imaged for deposit under Check 21 rules. Nine-year-old AllTrust, which until early this year was known as BioPay, plans to leverage its ability to link biometric authentication to remote capture for third-party checks.

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According to a new report from Yankee Group Research, payments from mobile devices are about to take off. Yankee Group estimates global payment transactions originating from NFC-enabled (Near Field Communications) mobile devices will be a mere 110,000 this year, but then jump to 7.3 million next year; 130.2 million in 2011; 970.9 million in 2012, and 3.6 billion in 2013. In their “Dialing for Dollars: Yankee Group’s 2009 NFC Forecast” report, the research firm predicts that 2013 will be a “tipping point” in which the number of NFC-enabled handsets will hit 80.8 million, including 13.4 million in North America.

Visa has entered into a partnership with Monitise in an effort to further strengthen its presence in the mobile financial services arena. London-based Monitise said in a statement that it would be “a strategic development partner for Visa's comprehensive suite of mobile services, including payments, mobile money transfer, mobile transaction alerts, and mobile marketing offers to support Visa's mobile strategy to extend the reach of its global network to the more than 4 billion mobile devices around the world.”

Download this complimentary White Paper today!

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Symantec plans to use the 'wisdom of the crowds' and introduce reputation-based security in the next version of its Norton Antivirus 2010 product. The software, due out at the end of August, will use information gathered under its Community Watch program. The security giant says that their reputation-based approach will work by constantly surveying the data being gathered from users without any need for human interaction. This reputation-based approach would be used in consumer products first but would eventually make it into enterprises.

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Online & Mobile Banking:

Saving Costs and Increasing Marketshare

eEminder - http://www.eeminder.com   Read Thomas Utsch's comments:   http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/eEminder.pdf

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

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

Harland Financial Solutions - http://www.harlandfinancialsolutions.com   Read Jeff Marshall's comments:   http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/HFS.pdf

MShift - http://www.mshift.com Read Pamela Livingston's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/MShift.pdf

Syphr - http://www.syphronline.com Read Chris Langeley's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Syphr.pdf

TowerGroup - http://www.towergroup.com Read Charul Vyas' comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/TowerGroup.pdf

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

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It can be extremely difficult in this economy for banks to expand their branch networks with stand alone branches, so some banks are turning to in-line and in-store branches. By some estimates, the capital cost for three in-line branches is about one third of the cost of two freestanding branches. According to Bancography, a provider of consulting services, software tools and marketing research to financial institutions, banks can typically operate three in-line branches for the cost of two traditional branches, but on average the in-line branches capture 35% less in deposits than freestanding branches.

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According to research commissioned by NYCE, consumers who limit their online shopping say they would make more purchases online if their financial institution offered them a safe payment method. The NYCE study asked whether respondents would be interested in trying a secure payment method offered by their financial institution. Even those who rarely or never shop online now indicated interest in such a solution:

* Eighteen percent of those who had never purchased anything online indicated they would likely try online shopping using a secure payment method offered by their financial institution.
* Among those who rarely shopped online, 27.6 percent indicated they would likely make more purchases using such a method.
* Nearly half of the frequent Internet purchasers who were reached for the survey online indicated they would consider replacing their current method with one offered by their financial institution, as long as they felt it was safe and secure.

Research from British financial institution Saffron Building Society has revealed that a lack of motivation is the main barrier preventing people from saving. Responding to this lack of motivation amongst UK savers, Saffron Building Society has created Saffron Moneytree, an online goal-based savings tool designed to help people save money towards their own targets. The customer decides what they want to save for and then Saffron Moneytree helps to set out how much they will need to put aside and for how long they will need to save to achieve that specific goal.

ING Direct in Canada has launched "Fee Tweeter", a new application which enables users to tweet and compare their bank fees with other users. The 'fee twitter' application is open to both existing Twitter users as well as non-users who may post a guest tweet and view the stream of comments posted by other users, thereby providing a single destination for savers to share and compare the bank fees they've been charged.

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Toshiba America Information Systems has launched a unified communications suite which bundles Toshiba’s unified communications applications in a single software package. Toshiba says that all applications in the unified communications suite run on one UC server, Toshiba’s media application server. The suite includes presence and instant messaging. The presence capability allows viewing the status of other users with access to both their telephone busy/idle status and calendar status from Outlook integration. Users can also maximize efficiency with the ability to call or instant-message contacts in one click.

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Ifbyphone introduced Call Distributor, a service that helps small organizations create virtual call centers, complete with advanced automated call handling so that customers can route inbound calls to any phone, anywhere. Call center operators will be provided with an array of additional call routing options, and clients pay for minutes used with no need to purchase expensive new business telephone equipment and software. Call Distributor also includes several capabilities beyond advanced call routing, including interactive voice response and call queuing.

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