BANK tech-trends News
 

September 21, 2009 - September 25, 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

Addressing complaints about slow Windows startup times, Hewlett-Packard plans to introduce a new business desktop PC that comes with a solid-state disk drive (SSD) to speed up Windows 7 and other applications. Available on Oct. 22 - the same day Windows 7 is officially released - the HP Compaq 6005 Pro will feature a 64GB SSD and also come with a larger conventional hard disk drive connected via SATA interface for storing data and documents. HP calls the combo drive configuration its RapidDrive technology. The AMD-based 6005 Pro with RapidDrive costs $774, about $200 more than the $550 starting cost of the 6000 Pro, which lacks an SSD.

Lenovo announced its ThinkPad X200 Tablet PC and ThinkPad T400s laptop, both with capacitive multitouch technology for business users and “SimpleTap,” a proprietary interface for touch applications. The ThinkPad X200 Tablet supports one- and two-finger touch to perform a variety of gestures, including pinching, zooming, tapping and flicking through documents, web pages and photos; while the higher-performance ThinkPad T400s laptop offers four-finger touch capability to manipulate objects, move images with two hands or collaborate with another person on the same screen, simultaneously. While multitouch is still in its infancy in business applications, Lenovo said now was the right time to implement it on its PC lineup. The screens are coated with an anti-fingerprint layer.

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ATMs/Kiosks

NCR says that they are the first ATM manufacturer to receive PA-DSS certification from the PCI Security Council. PA-DSS is a comprehensive standard intended to help organizations proactively protect consumer account data, through requirements for security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, software design and other critical protective measures. The latest version of NCR APTRA Advance NDC has been certified by PCI. APTRA Advance NDC makes it possible to drive a single application across multiple vendors’ hardware in NDC host environments.

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3VR Security, a searchable surveillance vendor, announced that it has been issued a U.S. Patent entitled ‘Interactive System for Recognition Analysis of Multiple Streams of Video,’ which supports two claims related to the use of integration data and metadata in facial analysis and object comparison. The two claims include:

- The 3VR Multi-Analytic Pipeline provides for the use of external information, such as region and time period, in the analysis and identification of a video image. Whereas previously, image data could only be analyzed using information derived from a single biometric, 3VR’s patented technology allows for data analysis using a synthesis of information from a wide range of sources. The technology also provides a framework to process multiple analytic sources simultaneously.

- The 3VR Similarity Engine provides the ability to synthesize data profiles from a series of images. By analyzing a stream of low fidelity images, rather than a single high fidelity image, the technology allows users to more accurately determine the best profile match.

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Microsoft and M-Com announced a partnership that will offer banks mobile payments functionality via M-Com's BankAnywhere platform. The companies say that BankAnywhere provides a complete end-to-end mobile payments solution and includes best-practice security and risk management capabilities.

Javelin Strategy & Research released a report indicating that mobile banking is quickly moving in to the mainstream and is changing how consumers manage their finances today, which in turn will change how consumers pay for goods in the future. Here are the key findings of the Javelin 2009 Mobile-Banking and Smartphone Forecast:

• Nearly half of mobile-phone owners currently have access to mobile banking today.
• By 2014, 45% of mobile-phone users will actually use mobile banking.
• 99 million U.S. adults will conduct mobile banking transactions at least once per year by 2014 - with 52% of mobile-phone users relying on smartphones.
• Mobile banking will rival online banking, with the former used as a "remote control" and the latter as a detailed form of control panel for more complex transactions.
• AT&T has the highest number of mobile bankers due to the iPhone's influence, while Verizon Wireless has the lowest penetration for mobile bankers among the top tier U.S. wireless carriers.

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Organizations are finding it difficult to prioritize defense strategies against cyber attacks because most of them do not have an Internet-wide view of the attacks, according to a report from SANS, the security training organization. As a result, two security risks — web applications and phishing — carry the greatest potential for damage, yet users instead tend to concentrate on less-critical risks. SANS identifies two main defense priorities for enterprise users. The first is targeted email attacks, or spear phishing, that exploit client-side vulnerabilities in programs such as Adobe's PDF Reader and Flash, Apple QuickTime and Microsoft Office. The second priority is vulnerable websites. More than 60 percent of attacks are against web applications and "convert trusted websites into malicious websites serving content that contains client-side exploits" by exploiting the most common vulnerabilities such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting flaws, in both open-source and custom-built applications. Such vulnerabilities make up more than 80 percent of attack opportunities.

Radware announced the release of DefensePro 5.0, an enhanced version of its intrusion prevention system (IPS) that is designed to protect application infrastructure against cyber security attacks and emerging zero-minute and non-vulnerability network threats. Radware says that DefensePro 5.0 now offers an advanced way to guard against vulnerabilities in the network by utilizing a unique ‘booster shot’ architecture that uses a dedicated hardware acceleration engine to offer DDoS attack mitigation up to 10-million PPS.

According to the Smart Card Alliance, the US payments industry should use contactless chip cards along with dynamic cryptograms - rather than end-to-end data encryption - in the fight against fraudsters. "Implementing end-to-end encryption is not a panacea; in fact, it may be more akin to putting a steel door on a grass hut," says Randy Vanderhoof, executive director, Smart Card Alliance. The alliance says that many issuers are already providing contactless payment cards with dynamic cryptograms in order to provide consumers with a fast, convenient way to pay. Therefore, they argue that expanding use of contactless cards throughout the US payment system would lower fraud because stolen payment information could not be used to make fraudulent cards.

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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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Analysis from Market Rates Insight, a leading research firm that tracks rates for deposits, loans, and fees for financial institutions, reveals that financial institutions are responding to consumers’ increasing demand for short-term CDs (with terms of one year or less) by adding more short-term deposit products in the last 60 days. The number of short-term CD products has increased nationally by 1.3 percent since July 3. At the same time, the number of long-term CD products (with terms over one year) has decreased by 1.3 percent during the same period.

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A company called SustainLink has developed a website that is designed to help consumers find eco-conscious financial institutions. The company says that depositors looking to do their part regarding climate change, environmental responsibility and societal stewardship can use their new tool to help them select their banking relationships. "At this juncture in our history, we expect bank depositors will seek eco-intelligent banks and credit unions as a way to align their values with their money," said Dan Parker, SustainLINK's Chief Strategy Officer he added, "Before our qualification process, an independent information source differentiating eco-intelligent institutions from those who are not, didn't exist."

Security firm Trusteer is reporting that the Zeus online banking Trojan infects machines that are running up-to-date anti-virus programs up to 77 percent of the time. Zeus, which is also known as Zbot, WSNPOEM, NTOS and PRG, is the most prevalent financial malware on the Internet today. It infects consumer PCs, waits for the user to log onto a list of targeted financial institutions, and then grabs their credentials which are sent to a remote server in real time. It can also modify, in a user’s browser, the genuine web pages from an institution’s web servers to ask for personal information such as payment card number and PIN, one time passwords, etc. Trusteer found that among Zeus infected machines:

• 31% had no Antivirus protection installed
• 14% had Antivirus protection installed, but signatures files were not up to date
• 55% had up-to-date Antivirus protection installed

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According to research firm Current Analysis, organizations that rely on premises-based communications equipment, rather than network-based or hosted services, have held steady at approximately 90%. However, they note that the "hosted VoIP market is on the cusp of a surge . . . with recent product development activity [from] some of the world's largest telecommunications equipment makers, including work on stand-alone SIP-compliant application products from Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN), Alcatel-Lucent and Nortel."

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In some call centers, after call work (ACW) has a negative impact on agents' productivity because it is considered to be "non productive" time. Meanwhile in other centers ACW is considered productive time because it is unavoidable and part of handling the previous call. Fortunately, newer call center technology allows the supervisor and or the agent to touch an activity or wrap up explanation and make it part of the call flow for that call. It also allows a voice call, a follow up email and or a fax to be tagged to that customer for resolution. Any of these can be customized to the business application at the desktop.

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