BANK tech-trends News
 

May 30, 2011 - June 3, 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

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

According to research from FMSI, the Teller Cash Recycling market is forecast to accelerate to a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 10% between 2011 and 2013. They note the following changes with the use of recyclers:

Activity                                           Manual                          With Recyclers
Cash Drawer Set-up & Settlement      * +20 mins. per station    * 2-5 mins. per station
Cash In & Cash Out Transactions         * 1.5 to 2 mins.              * 1 to 1.5 mins.
Vault Buys & Sells                              * ~3 per station             * 0 to 1 per station
End-of-Day Settlement/Reporting        * 30 to 90 mins.             * 15 to 30 mins.
Note Validation/Counterfeit Check        * 90% to 95%              * 99.99%
Night Deposit Bag Processing               * 3 to 4 mins.               * 1 to 2 mins.
Error Handling                                   * 1 - 60 mins.                * .25 - 15 mins.
Customer Queuing                             * 3 to 5 mins.                * +1 min. less than before

Banks looking to make the switch from traditional hard drives to faster SSDs (solid state drives) will want to look at the Storage Networking Industry Association's (SNIA) new specification that can be used to test the performance of SSDs regardless of the vendor. SNIA, an industry trade group of vendors and universities that develops and promotes standards for storage systems, said its Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI) developed the SSD Performance Test Specification to level the playing field in benchmark testing. The SSSI is releasing two versions of the test specification: one currently available for enterprise SSDs, and another for server or client-side SSDs, which will be released in the third quarter of this year.

Back to Top

Back to Top

ATMs/Kiosks

POS Supply Solutions is now offering Waffletechnology Smart Card Reader Cleaning Cards to protect card readers from dirt, oil and contaminants introduced every time a credit card is inserted into a reader. The company says that their cards will remove contaminants from swipe readers, access controls, time clocks, chip and pin readers and smart card readers. It's designed to be used in swipe and dip card readers that use magnetic stripe technology.

NCR announced the rollout of APTRA Cash Connect 6.0 software that helps banks and employees use, monitor and integrate multi-vendor automation units, such as teller cash recyclers. The company says that APTRA Cash Connect 6.0 supports all major teller automation units in the market today. Enhancements to 6.0 include a Microsoft SQL Server Express database that enables consolidated branch-wide data and branch-wide reporting capabilities for teller automation activity, and a new Java-based teller interface.

Back to Top

Google announced Google Wallet which will deliver services that will combine coupons and discounts and payments at the time people buy things through their phone. The first phone that will be able to do this is the Android-based Nexus S, which has an NFC chip made by NXP inside. The first participating retailers will be Macy's, Subway, Walgreens, Toys "R" Us, Bloomingdale's, Guess, and Noah's Bagels. For the payments service, Google is partnering with Sprint, MasterCard, Citi, and FirstData. Google Wallet will support multiple cards, Citi and MasterCard, and a prepaid card funded from any credit card. Google says loading a card on a phone will be more secure than a physical wallet thanks to a smartphone's password and encryption on the phone.

Back to Top

Social Intelligence is a firm that conducts social media background checks for employers that either want to monitor their employees' online activities or screen job seekers' Web-based pursuits. The company touts that they do not reveal anything that is federally or state protected: race, religion, national origin, age, marital status, disability status, military status, etc. - that way the applicant is protected against being evaluated based on information that's not legally allowable. Social Intelligence's background check product is based on software that collects data from across the Web on an individual's social activity. Employers select from a list of 25 types of Internet activity that they want Social Intelligence to search for - both negative and positive. Social Intelligence is not the only company offering social media background checks; competitors include InfoCheckUSA and Tandem Select.

According to Gartner, by 2014 fifteen percent of enterprises will adopt layered fraud prevention techniques for their internal systems. Gartner's five layers include:

Layer 1 is endpoint-centric technologies such as secure browsing applications or hardware, as well as transaction-signing devices.

Layer 2 is navigation-centric; this monitors and analyzes session navigation behavior and compares it with navigation patterns that are expected on that site, or uses rules that identify abnormal and suspect navigation patterns.

Layer 3 is software that monitors and analyzes user or account behavior and associated transactions and identifies anomalous behavior, using rules or statistical models.

Layer 4 is user- and account-centric across multiple channels and products.

Layer 5 is entity link analysis. It enables the analysis of relationships among internal and/or external entities and their attributes (e.g., users, accounts, account attributes, machines and machine attributes).

Back to Top

Security:

Securing the Bank from the Inside to the Outside

Actiance - http://www.Actiance.com Read Sarah Carter's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Actiance.pdf

Awareness Technologies - http://www.awarenesstechnologies.com Read Brad Miller's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Awareness.pdf

BrandProtect - http://www.BrandProtect.com Read Michael Kiefer's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/BrandProtect.pdf

Diebold - http://www.Diebold.com Read Scott Harroff's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Diebold.pdf

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:   http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Heit.pdf

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

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:   http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/NetworkBox.pdf

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

Savant Protection - http://www.savantprotection.com Read Paul Paget's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Savant.pdf

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

Back to Top

Extraco Banks has patented a branch banking concept dubbed "swarm," which brings tellers out from behind the line to mingle with visitors. There is no traditional teller line, in its place are open floor plans with free-standing work stations. In hiring, the Texas-based bank favors those with college degrees working on the frontline, and it pays them more than the typical teller. The end result: teller turnover has dropped from 60% to under 20%.

Back to Top

The average American loses $300 per year in unwanted card charges, according to BillGuard. The startup calls their service "antivirus for bills" and works by scanning your credit cards daily, alerting you to hidden fees, billing errors, forgotten subscriptions, scams and fraud. BillGuard relies on its user base (crowdsourcing) to identify nuisance and fraudulent charges. After registering at their website with your email address and zip code, you have to enter your username and password for a credit card account into the Yodlee-powered aggregation engine. The platform then downloads the past 30 days of transactions and analyzes them for potentially fraudulent or unwanted charges which are color-coded by risk assessment (green = good, orange = review, red = flagged). The company is looking to partner with US financial institutions to market their system.

Around a quarter of Americans want to be able to bypass branches and ATMs and use their mobile phones to deposit checks, according to a report from Javelin Strategy & Research. Among people who already use m-banking services, the percentage wanting mobile remote deposit capture (RDC) for checks rises to 50%, says the report, that draws on surveys of more than 13,000 people.

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.

Back to Top

Avaya has unveiled the latest version their communications solution targeting the small medium business (SMB) market with the release of Avaya IP Office 7.0. Avaya also announced that service provider partners including Bell Canada and Verizon will offer Avaya IP Office 7.0 to their SMB customers. In addition to the IP Office 7.0 upgrade, Avaya also released an expanded portfolio of devices for multimedia collaboration, including new color touchscreen desktop phones that let users scroll through contacts or manage visual voicemail.

Polycom announced a new partnership to deliver its video solutions as part of 8x8’s “Virtual Office Pro” unified communications service. The company claims that SMBs can now take advantage of video without the need for large infrastructure investment, management resources, or having to self-provision extranet connectivity.

Back to Top

Research group Frost & Sullivan recently published a report that shows that contact centers can lower the cost of their contact handling and workforce optimization infrastructure by up to 43 percent over a five-year period by using cloud-based (software-as-a-service) offerings rather than installing premise-based equipment and solutions. The study considered various contact center configurations ranging in size from 50 to 500 seats, and in functionality from ACD-only to a full-function ACD, IVR, chat, outbound dialer, quality monitoring, workforce management, customer feedback, agent hiring and e-learning system. Their conclusion was that hosted contact center services significantly reduce TCO over premise-based systems in both three- and five-year scenarios for all configurations analyzed, and the larger the contact center, the higher the savings with the hosted model.

Back to Top