BANK tech-trends News
 

November 28, 2011 - December 2, 2011

• 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

Voice Recovery & Business Continuity Insurance

This program will educate and demonstrate how to comply with FDIC emergency preparedness guidelines by protecting the communications of your community bank in the event of a communications outage. This new, easy-to-use technology ensures restoration of incoming calls and faxes soon after a natural disaster or other telecom outage. The service is affordable for large or small banks, and satisfies all FDIC compliance requirements for communications emergency preparedness.


What You Will Learn:

- How to rapidly recover from outages
- How to regain complete control of incoming calls and faxes
- How to reroute up to thousands of phone numbers in minutes or even seconds
- How to broadcast recorded messages to small or large groups of people

Who Should Attend: This program will benefit senior managers, IT Directors, VPs of Operations, and anyone at the bank who is interested in telecommunications, disaster recovery or business continuity.

Presented By: Telecom Recovery is an industry pioneer in the rapid recovery of communications after a telecommunications outage, with a unique focus on the restoration of the incoming calls to existing phone numbers.

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  
 

~ 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

Server vendors are coming out in support of Advanced Micro Devices' latest Opteron 6200 server chips, which advance chip technology to new highs with 16 processor cores. Code-named Interlagos, the new chips are 25 % to 30 % faster than their predecessors, the 12-core Opteron 6100 chips. The Opteron 6200 chips are based on a new processor architecture called Bulldozer from AMD. The architecture mixes the CPU integer floating point units for faster and more power-efficient performance. HP just introduced five Proliant G7 servers with AMD's new server chips, while IBM will refresh its System x 3755 M3 rack server with AMD's new chips. Dell will include the new AMD chips in upcoming servers.

Avaya has rolled out new Ethernet Routing Switch (ERS) 4000 series switches that are designed to help organizations optimize networks for collaboration, and simplify the convergence of voice, video and data. Along with the switches, Avaya rolled out new software that includes support for Power over Ethernet (PoE) and PoE+, among other features. The switches are compatible with Avaya's Virtual Enterprise Network Architecture (VENA), a blueprint unveiled a year ago to allow users to optimize the network for business applications and services through virtualization.

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ATMs/Kiosks

There is a great deal of ambiguity in the ADA requirements for ATMs which means that just because someone says a certain ATM model is compliant doesn't mean that your same model is compliant. This is due to factors such as different software configurations, or the way that your machines are installed. Fortunately, many manufacturers offer upgrade paths for many of their machines. In some cases, the upgrade to an ADA-compliant keypad can be accomplished with the change to a PCI-compliant encrypting PIN pad. While in other situations, the headphone jack kits required for audio-guided transactions can be added as necessary. If all else fails, you can look into a trade-in program where you can get credit for your older non-ADA compliant machines.

ATM cassettes play a vital part in dispensing cash correctly which is why TestLink has come out with a cassette tester to prevent ATMs from paying out too much or too little money due incorrect configurations. The company's three ATM cassette services for NCR machines include:

- ATM cassette testers
- refurbished "as new" ATM cassettes for sale
- ATM cassette repair

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Visa has formed an alliance with Shopkick, a developer of a mobile geo-location-based app, to provide users with reward deals when they make payments. The free Shopkick Android and iPhone apps provide users with reward points, called kicks, when they walk into participating retailers such as Best Buy and Target. The Visa partnership lets users link debit and credit cards to the app, meaning that they can collect points at the checkout as well.

Payair, a Swedish mobile payments company, is bringing their system to America. Payair's payment system consists of a smartphone app that uses QR or barcodes to collect information about products. The app then accesses the user's credit or debit card information to make a payment. The company says that retailers do not have to install new hardware to use Payair because the system integrates with existing systems.

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SplashData, a security software developer, recently generated a list of worst passwords from millions of actual stolen passwords. Here are the top 25:

1. password

2. 123456

3. 12345678

4. qwerty

5. abc123

6. monkey

7. 1234567

8. letmein

9. trustno1

10. dragon

11. baseball

12. 111111

13. iloveyou

14. master

15. sunshine

16. ashley

17. bailey

18. passw0rd

19. shadow

20. 123123

21. 654321

22. superman

23. qazwsx

24. michael

25. football

As an alternative, they suggest using phrases of short words separated by underscores, such as: Shiny_Phones_Rule_1.

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Core Systems:

Growing the Community Bank with the Help of Core Systems

FIS - http://www.fisglobal.com Read Patricia Valentino's comments:   http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/FIS.pdf

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

Harland Financial Solutions - http://www.harlandfinancialsolutions.com Read Jennifer Roberts' 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

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Ally Financial has launched a new type of new car loan in the country's five most populous states that will allow borrowers to sell their vehicles back to Ally after four years at a price that will at least cover the balance left on the loan. Called Buyer's Choice, the new offering will be available for dealers selling and consumers buying any General Motors or Chrysler vehicle in California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas. Consumers with loans ranging from 60 months to 84 months will have the option to sell their vehicle at a predetermined price after 48 months. Ally claims that this is the first financing product of its type in the auto industry.

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According to Celent, a Boston-based financial research and consulting firm, growth in self-service channel preferences, competitive pressures, and relentless cost reduction demands are vaulting RDC (remote deposit capture) into the consumer mainstream.

Key findings of their "The State of Consumer RDC 2011: Mobile Takes Center Stage" report include:

- Although nascent, consumer RDC, using both desktop scanning and smartphone approaches, is destined to grow rapidly.

- Three consecutive annual surveys conducted by Celent show a doubling in planned adoption of mobile RDC from 26% of surveyed FIs planning or considering a solution in August 2009 to 51% in September 2010 and another near doubling to 66% in 2011.

- Small business RDC client adoption remained unremarkable over the past year. For the most part, FIs continue to offer small business RDC products that require specialized check scanners that must be deployed by financial institutions and often purchased by users. The difficult economy combined with rather stiff monthly fees associated with many RDC products have squelched demand.

- The coming year will see a step change in the market, however, as FIs offer ultra-low cost alternatives to small businesses using mobile RDC or TWAIN-compatible scanners that most small businesses already have in their offices.

By some estimates, direct deposit offers the following savings breakdown:

- Costs a business up to $2 to cut and process a hard-copy check vs. $.35 or less for direct deposit
- A business with 25 employees would save at least $2000 a year, while a business with 100 employees would save at least $7000.

NACHA and PayItGreen have created a simple calculator to reveal any business' carbon footprint savings by switching to DD: http://www.payitgreen.org/business/dirDepCalculator.aspx 

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Plum Voice offers both hosted and onsite interactive voice response (IVR) systems. The hosted IVR solutions offered by Plum Voice are built on the Plum VoiceXML platform and managed by the company’s engineers. All systems are hosted in the company’s secure data centers, and provide all of the necessary IVR features such as disaster recovery, fault tolerance, 24x7 operations and unlimited port capacity.

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Verizon has teamed with inContact to deliver new cloud-based "virtual contact center" services. The offer will enable consumers to choose how they want to contact the organization - whether by phone, by requesting a call back, or using the Web for an online chat.

Other features include:

- Software to direct specific callers to agents with the appropriate level of expertise.

- Agent desktop tools to help educate and prepare agents

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