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BANK tech-trends News
 

May 16, 2011 - May 20, 2011

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

Dell has updated its enterprise Ethernet switch lineup with the PowerConnect 7000 series, adding high-availability features, low power consumption and POE (power over Ethernet). The 7000 series consists of stackable Layer 3 Gigabit Ethernet switches in a variety of configurations with 24 or 48 ports. The boxes use the Energy Efficient Ethernet standard which reduces power consumption through techniques such as putting individual ports into sleep mode during periods of low traffic which can cut per-port power consumption by as much as 50%. The 7000 series also comes with several features for high availability, including redundant and hot-swappable fans and power supplies. The PowerConnect 7048R can be reconfigured to reverse the airflow through the switch depending on the data center layout being used.

Hardware Section Sponsored by
MVi

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Software Updates

Dexpot is a solution that lets you open more than one desktop at a time on your screen so that you can have multiple open windows. The tool also lets you easily toggle between the separate desktops for full-screen viewing. The free virtual desktop software lets you have as many as 20 virtual desktops open simultaneously on your screen.

Commercial virtualization products such as VMware are effective but costly tools that enable you to serve up different virtual machines. One alternative to these solutions is the VirtualBox virtualization software, which is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac. With VirtualBox, it is possible to create as many virtual images as you like and then serve them up over the network. VirtualBox is not as robust or as flexible as the VMware vSphere system, but it is free and may be useful for smaller banks.
 
Software Section Sponsored by
Raddon Financial Group (RFG)

 

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ATMs/Kiosks

Wincor Nixdorf has unveiled their ProView video surveillance for ATMs. With ProView Video Surveillance, Wincor Nixdorf now offers software that enables both centralized image and video monitoring and image analysis. ProView Video Surveillance consists of two components. The first is ATMeye Core - a software package developed by Wincor Nixdorf partner BS/2 that processes image and video data and archives it on the ATM's hard disk. The second is ProView Video Surveillance Central, which controls data transmission and provides the analysis function.

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Wireless World


Austin, Texas-based, Malauzai Software has launched a new mobile banking platform built entirely on “Cool SmartApps” and designed specifically for banks. Malauzai’s platform is based on three tenants designed to enhance the customer’s experience: Social Banking, an Application Management System, and Mobile Marketing. Malauzai's software is designed so that it can be deployed quickly, and ties directly to the core system rather than online banking.

Visa is building a digital wallet that people can use to pay for things online or with their phones instead of with traditional cards. The product will allow consumers to make online or mobile purchases with a user name and password, instead of typing in a card number for each payment. The network said it is working with several large U.S. and international banks to develop the wallet. Visa will also have to convince merchants to put a new "one-click" button on their websites, so that potential customers can use their Visa digital wallets to buy things by clicking the button. Merchants will receive the buyer’s billing and address and contact information along with an authorization code for each transaction, but will not have access to or store any consumer account data. Financial institutions and merchants can brand it or extend it as they choose, and payment options customers can load into the Digital Wallet won't be limited to just Visa cards.

Bank of America intends to test a new program that would call for them to notify customers by text message if a transaction will push their account into an overdraft situation. The customer can then decide whether to accept the $35 fee or not. The approval would cover only that particular transaction, and if the customer replenished the checking account within a specified time period, the fee would not be charged.

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Security Section


GFI Software has launched GFI MailEssentials Complete, an anti-phishing and email security solution for smaller organizations that gives them an email security solution they can deploy using the delivery model of their choice, whether on premise, as a physical or virtual appliance or as a hosted service. Their research shows that nearly 40 percent of smaller organizations rate themselves as “neutral” to “not satisfied” with their existing e-mail security solution, and a quarter indicated that they are looking to add a gateway device or SaaS offering to augment or to replace an existing system.

Panda Security is rolling out their Virtual GateDefender Performa which delivers cloud-based protection for VMWare virtualized environments. The company says that their Virtual GateDefender Performa system offers protection against all types of Internet-borne malware and unsolicited e-mail and blocks non-productive Web activity using a hybrid security cloud in the perimeter. The hybrid cloud used by the new virtual appliance combines a private cloud, hosted on a private network which provides service to Panda Virtual GateDefender Performa; and a public cloud, which provides service to a global network and private cloud (Collective Intelligence) as well.

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Leaders Roundtable

Security:

Securing the Bank from the Inside to the Outside

 


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

 
Integrated Media Management - http://www.immonline.com  
Read Nish Shah's comments:

Indigo Identityware - http://www.indigoidentityware.com
Read Thomas J. Rheineck's comments:
http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Indigo.pdf

mFoundry - http://www.mFoundry.com
Read Carlo Cardilli's comments:    
http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/mFoundry.pdf

 
Millennial Vision - http://www.mviusa.com
Read Scott Cowan's comments:
http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/MVi.pdf

 
Network Box - http://www.networkboxusa.com  
Read Pierluigi Stella's comments:

 
Ongoing Operations - http://www.ongoingoperations.com  
Read Hugh Smallwood's comments:  
http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/OGO.pdf


S1 Defense - http://www.S1defense.com
Read Bruce C. Smalley's comments:
http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/S1Defense.pdf


 
TriGeo Network Security - http://www.trigeo.com  
Read Michelle Dickman's comments:  
http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/TriGeo.pdf


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Technology and Marketing

When it comes to social media, every bank must be aware of regulatory considerations, have a social media policy and develop employee education and training. Plus, you must be aware of what’s being said about your bank, and some analysts recommend that you keep an eye on what is being said about your strategic partners and vendors. They argue social media monitoring should also be a part of your procurement process. An evaluation of what customers, clients and peers are saying about a potential vendor can be vital pieces of information when making vendor selections.

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Online Banking/E-Commerce/Website Design


A group of veterans from the banking, retail and e-commerce worlds have launched a "cash-gift network" that lets firms send monetary incentives straight to consumers' credit and debit cards through participating financial institutions. FreeMonee's system is based on the firm's patent-pending Adaptive Matching Technology, which analyses the transaction data of hundreds of millions of debit and credit card holders - "while protecting privacy" - and matches gifts with likely buyers. The firm says that with their system merchants get net, new profitable visits and banks receive a new source of consumer-friendly revenue.

Bridgeview Bank claims to have created the first, fully accessible online bank for people with disabilities. On their home page is the Prime Access logo which reads, “click here for accessible banking” alongside the universal symbol for people with disabilities. Clicking the icon downloads an interactive tool bar. Once downloaded, the toolbar will allow people with disabilities to be able to use text-to-voice and voice-to-text software to perform all their banking transactions in real time.

Online Banking Sponsored by
Confident Technologies

Online authentication has traditionally involved a trade-off between security and usability. A single layer of password authentication is not secure, but strong authentication processes such as hardware tokens and smart cards are costly, difficult to maintain and inconvenient for your customers.

Community banks can reduce costs and increase revenue by encouraging more customers to conduct business on the Web, but many consumers are still wary of online banking. In fact, 30% of consumers cite security concerns as one of the primary reasons they don’t bank online.

This white paper from Confident Technologies will examine the security threats associated with weak authentication practices on the Web, and describe new approaches for easily and affordably adding a second layer of authentication on the website that is both highly secure and easy on people.

Image-based authentication solutions from Confident Technologies can help increase security, reduce support costs and improve the customer experience by adding one-time passwords using an intuitive, picture-based approach.

This white paper also describes how image-based authentication can be used with mobile phones for two-factor authentication that is more secure than sending authentication codes by SMS text message.
 

Click here to access the white paper.

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Internet Access

Citing a rise in the number and scope of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks across the Internet, Verisign is expanding its cloud-based DDoS protection service to cover midsize businesses that are increasingly frequent targets. In addition to this proactive DDoS service that starts at $35,000 per year, Verisign is offering a reactive service that allows a smaller organization to call Verisign after an attack has occurred to stop it in the cloud before it reaches a particular website.

ShorTel's SA 100 incorporates unified communications software factory installed on a hardware server that can be managed from ShoreTel's director platform. The UC package formerly was sold separately for installation on customer-owned hardware and had its own management interface. SA 100 supports instant messaging, audio conferencing and desktop sharing. The company says the new appliance is half the price of the software-only option.

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Call Centers



Noble Systems is targeting banks with their call center technology, particularly collections departments. The Noble system has outbound predictive dialing; blended inbound, real-time reporting and management; data redundancy; call recording; interactive menus and customer self service; integrates with collections systems and various databases; and assorted PBX interfaces. It also includes interactive voice response (IVR) and text-to-speech (TTS) capabilities.

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