BANK tech-trends News
 

November 8, 2010 - November 12, 2010

• Hardware News
• Software Updates
• ATMs/Kiosks
• Wireless World
• Security Section
• Leaders Roundtable
• Technology and Marketing
• Online Banking/E-Commerce/
  Website Design
• Internet Access
• Call Centers

Complimentary Webinar

Maintaining Telecommunications & Meeting Auditor Requirements

It can be extremely difficult to maintain telecommunications with your staff and customers after a disaster. This point is evidenced by the fact that the Post-Katrina reports from all of the governmental agencies regulating financial institutions placed restoring communications quickly at the top of their lists. The FFIEC reports said that banks must:

"Anticipate disruptions in communications services, possibly for extended periods of time." 

The report also noted that "communications outages made it difficult to locate missing personnel." 

Therefore banks must develop affordable ways to quickly restore their telecommunications infrastructure. This complimentary Webinar will demonstrate how your bank can be prepared for telecom disasters without having a telecom person on staff or spending thousands of dollars on redundant phone systems.
 

What You Will Learn:

- How to inexpensively satisfy telecom disaster requirements
- How to show auditors that you can provide a backup telecom system with just 1 phone call
- How you can successfully answer every telecom disaster preparedness questionnaire on the auditor's forms.

BONUS: Every attendee will receive a sample Telecommunications Disaster Recovery Plan.

Who Should Attend:

IT staff, telecom staff, Audit and Compliance personnel, Managers, and anyone interested in maintaining telecommunications.


Date: Schedule a 30-minute live demonstration at your convenience that could one day save your business. If this isn't the easiest to use, most affordable, and most powerful inbound telecom disaster recovery system that you have ever seen, we will send you a free gift - seeing is believing!

To Register: http://www.banktt.com/webinars.htm  

Costs: Free

~ This Week's News is Sponsored by MARQUIS Software Solutions ~

Please contact John Kassing @ johnk@gomarquis.com, or call 800-365-4274 to learn more about MCIF, referral tracking or CRM solutions that you can and will actually use!

Hardware News

OCZ Technology announced the launch of its next-generation PCI-express solid state drive, which offers up to 740MB/sec throughput or up to 120,000 I/Os per second (IOPS). The RevoDrive X2 comes in capacities ranging from 100GB to 960GB. The drive line gets its increased capacity through the use of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash chips, which, while natively slower and less robust than single-level cell NAND, are less costly. The RevoDrive X2 offers about three times the throughput of even high-end SSDs using the serial ATA (SATA) interface and single-level cell NAND flash. That's because SATA provides up to 300Mbit/sec throughput compared to the PCIe interface, which has 500 MB/sec throughput per I/O lane. OCZ's latest SSD comes on the heels of an industry push to create a standardized PCIe interface for all SSD manufacturers. A group of server, storage and hardware vendors, including Intel, IBM Dell, and EMC, have banded together and created a standards work group for the purpose of creating that PCIe SSD standard.

Panini announced the Panini Vision X MFS which is a multi-function system that extends the functionality of Panini’s Vision X scanner with add-on hardware modules designed specifically to provide a range of additional office and branch automation functionality. The MFS solution offers check processing, receipt printing, and validation printing without any increase to the existing compact footprint of the Vision X check scanner. In addition to the docking station and thermal receipt printer modules, the Panini Vision X MFS also offers a docking station with full-page/A4 scanning, including the ability to scan rigid documents/plastic ID cards.

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ATMs/Kiosks

According to a report released by Retail Banking Research, NCR has retained its title as the world's largest ATM manufacturer for the 24th consecutive year. NCR officials said that in 2009 the company controlled 29.5 percent of the installed base of ATMs worldwide. Last year, the global installed base of ATMs was approximately 2.1 million.

Nautilus Hyosung has introduced the NH-2700, which includes a number of upgrades compared with the popular NH-1800 ATM. The NH-2700's interface and graphics enhancements provide capabilities for streaming news and information, display advertisements and background enhancements. The NH-2700 also has a more powerful processor, and comes with a security pack, including sensors and other safety features.

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Celent, a Boston-based financial research and consulting firm, has released their new report entitled "Shuffling the Mobile Banking Vendor Deck: A Comparison of Mobile Retail Banking Solutions." Key findings of the report include:

• Whereas many vendors originally focused on one modality (SMS/text, mobile web, or app), they now offer all three. While vendor focus was once more on consumer-facing UIs (user interfaces), focus has since shifted to back end analytics. Having only a handful of financial institution (FI) implementations three years ago, many vendors now have experience with hundreds of FIs.

• With elevated mobile banking prioritization, Celent observes a number of trends:

1) Rather than seeing mobile banking as an extension of online banking, FIs now see mobile banking as a discrete channel.
2) The modality Triple Play has become a necessity, not a "nice to have."
3) Text messaging will enjoy a resurgence for use in transactional alerts and marketing.
4) Rather than looking at near-term, "check the box" functionality, FIs are looking at mobile banking more strategically.
5) Whistles and bells count for relatively less; back end functionality is key.
6) FIs are beginning to expand into transactional services and products (i.e., payments).

Tests conducted by computer and mobile security company viaForensics found that many of the Android and iPhone apps of large banks store certain data, such as user names and passwords, on the phones themselves. "Wireless app development is a relatively new field and there is a shortage of skilled programmers," the company noted. "Moreover, companies are being pushed to crank out these applications quickly, which raises the chance of flaws being introduced in the apps."

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One out of every eight computer attacks is being made via USB devices targeting the Windows AutoRun function, according to security software firm Avast. Avast said the "key attack point" for the malware is the AutoRun feature in Windows. AutoRun alerts computer users when a new device such as a memory stick is connected, and is designed to help them choose what application should run with the new files.

The Unisys Security Index is a bi-annual global study that provides insights into the attitudes of consumers on a wide range of security-related issues. This latest study revealed that one in ten consumers have taken their banking business elsewhere because they feel their bank is lax in protecting their privacy. The Index also found that 85 percent of consumers worry about card fraud and identity theft and will put their faith - and their money - in a financial institution they can trust to safeguard their personal data.

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Core Systems:

Helping with Regulatory Issues and Compliance Pressures

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

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

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

Software Management Associates - http://www.smausa.com   Read Michael W. Taylor's comments:   http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/SMA.pdf

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Raddon Financial Group research shows that, on average, 60% of all the relationships at a bank represent only one product. The average financial institution these days holds anywhere from 28% to 32% of a consumer’s wallet, defined as products including checking, savings, certificates of deposit and money market funds (but excluding first mortgages), according to Bill Handel, vice president of research and product development at Raddon. He recommends using various delivery channels to build wallet share, but cautions that banks first need a technology platform that can accommodate complex tasks related to tiered relationships, with the ability to handle multiple products and conditions.

Please contact John Kassing @ johnk@gomarquis.com, or call 800-365-4274 to learn more about MCIF, referral tracking or CRM solutions that you can and will actually use!

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According to a study by Decipher Research, more than one third of American adults now use online personal financial management (PFM) tools from their financial institutions and nearly half had switched FIs recently. Their research also found that:

- about 50% primarily still use spreadsheets and checkbook registers to manage finances
- more than a third use online tools
- just more than 25% only visit their local branch once a month
- 52% said they would leave their current financial institution for one that offers better money management capabilities

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Cost savings is the key driver for implementing Unified Communications, but performance is the key metric for judging success. UC experts say that a successful management strategy should include:

• Conduct a pre-deployment test. Run simulated traffic prior to implementation to ensure the WAN is properly sized to handle new real-time applications
• Validate that the LAN has Power Over Ethernet, and that LAN switches will are appropriate for the functions of the UC applications you plan to deploy
• Consider Application Delivery Optimization tools to help improve performance of applications by reducing latency and compressing traffic
• Make sure you have tools in place for asset management
• Define clear troubleshooting processes including what to test for particular kinds of trouble (dropped calls, static, echo, fast-busy, etc.), escalation procedures, and so on

ADCs take over where server load balancers leave off

In the last decade, server load balancers were hailed as the solution to website scalability and availability problems. These devices balanced traffic across servers to ensure the site was available and could handle traffic spikes. If one server went down, the load balancer redirected traffic. When a site got "slashdotted" you could add more servers transparently.

Flash forward to 2010; Web servers aren't just delivering static content, they're delivering Apps. Businesses are using Web-based applications to deliver mission critical functionalities to employees and customers. Simple load balancing is no longer sufficient.

Fortunately, load balancers have evolved into Application Delivery Controllers (ADCs). This new species understands application specific traffic and can optimize application server performance by offloading many of the computer intensive tasks that would otherwise bog down CPUs that could be better occupied elsewhere. This article will discuss how ADCs have taken over where server load balancers left off.

Click Here to Download the White Paper "ADCs take over where server load balancers leave off"

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NICE Systems has upgraded their NICE Perform eXpress with a new Quality Management module. NICE says that the new version includes "total recording" to capture all caller interactions, improved call retention and virtualization, expanded support for dozens of additional telephony environments and support for gathering call metadata that is not dependent on the Computer Telephony Integration system. NICE claims that their Perform eXpress solution delivers cost-efficient compliance recording with advanced quality management, providing capabilities that are no longer the sole domain of larger contact centers.

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