Bank Technology News articles from April 2003

Bank Technology News archives from April 2003

BIOMETRICS: E-Fingerprints Gain a Toehold: First Tennessee hopes to save time and money.
April 1, 2003... First Tennessee National Corp. has become the latest bank to switch from ink-based fingerprinting to electronic systems, cutting down the wait for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to clear prospective employees to only a few days. Getting...

COOPETITION: When Rivals Become Allies: Metavante and Fiserv compete and cooperate.
April 1, 2003... As fierce as the competition among electronic bill pay companies can be, the common goal of getting more people to receive and pay bills on-line is leading to cooperation between firms like Metavante and Fiserv, competitors that otherwise...

ECNs: SuperMontage Has a Tepid Debut.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Nasdaq struggles to dominate its market with supermontage on the scene, it wasn't supposed to be like this. The $107 million high-tech order and execution system that Nasdaq made fully operational in December was supposed to centralize and...

Editors Note.(Brief Article)(Editorial)(Correction Notice)
April 1, 2003... In "Big Latin Technology Bet Gets Another Shot," (March 2003), BTN incorrectly reported that TowerGroup estimated 2004 IT spending would be $954 million. That figure is for Internet-related technology spending only, not overall IT...

Focus on ROI Stifling Business Results? Could Be.: The ROI mantra is so pervasive within institutions that it's impeding business growth. That and the fact that timeframe-three to six months-is ridiculous.
April 1, 2003... For those line of business execs who feel like their CFO is co-piloting the business, take heart: You're not alone, and the reverberations are being felt up and down the line and into the IT shop. Why? The return-on-investment mantra is so...

....NewsMakers....NewsMakers....NewsMakers....(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Is Concord on the Block? When the ATM Network owner Concord EFS shook up its management team in February it seemed like the firm was bent on turning itself around. Then the company's stock plummeted to a 52-week low of around $8.50 when...

RETURN ON INVESTMENT: IT's Crystal Ball: Alltel debuts a free program to capture product success.
April 1, 2003... The level of pressure to keep tabs on the performance and cost of technology investments is as extensive as the array of new products promising to help in that effort. Amid a sea of these initiatives is a new program from Alltel that...

Top Tech Deals.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... 1 Bank One Corp will not renew its credit card processing agreement with First Data, planning instead to move that part of its business to the TSYS platform. 2 National Bank of Canada will hand off the IT component of its brokerage...

Wireless: What Wireless Woes?: Banks are getting busier than expected with wireless.
April 1, 2003... Delivering financial services over wireless devices always seemed more in sync with the free-wheeling, full-service brokerage community and its trade- oriented clientele. But anecdotal evidence suggests that bank investment divisions may be...

Advent Pursues Global Asset Management Market.(Geneva 4.1 banking software)
April 1, 2003... Advent software is aiming the launch of its 5.1 version of its Geneva investment-accounting platform at the global asset management market, including banks. The new version differs from the 4.1 version-used by 28 buy-side firms around...

CLEARING AND SETTLEMENT: A Duo's Double Down: BONY & Pershing merger raises the stakes in clearing.
April 1, 2003... Providing a supermarket of products and services is not a new strategy in the financial services industry. Soon financial advisors whose broker-dealers use Bank of New York's BONY Clearing or Pershing to clear trades will be part of the next...

By the Numbers.
April 1, 2003... Consumers want to pay bills on-line just not necessarily with their bank. Billers' Web sites have been the hot spot so far for on-line bill pay-it's where almost 75 percent of EBP&P use occurs, according to Gartner Group, while less than 10...

The Electronic Boss Sees Everything.
April 1, 2003... The longing for first-rate customer service and the latest technology innovation, coupled with the desire to have a strong defense in court, has led the CUNA Mutual Group to embrace a virtual supervisor of sorts-keeping an electronic tab on...

TECHIES.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The systems integration of Wachovia and First Union has advanced far enough for Wachovia to create a new executive post to oversee its technology operations. Martin Davis, an 18-year vet of Wachovia, has been given a boost to the new...

Message Board.(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... "It's helping us that the Internet is becoming less interesting." - Cary Serif, evp,Metavante on consumers viewing the Web as a useful utility for commercial activity such as EBP&P rather than an experimental novelty. "If we get...

Transparency, Not Bunker Mentality, Is In.
April 1, 2003... Many institutions are making a few mistakes in their technology strategy. Among them: They're tightening the screws on innovation way too much, and they're hiding even mundane tasks from customers and business partners in the name of secrecy....

Supply Chain Management: Links, Not Kinks, In the Chain: E-sourcing is gaining steam as a way to cut expenses without laying off staff or putting off new projects.
April 1, 2003... The search to cut costs in a bear economy is prompting bankers to leave no stone unturned. Supplies and other services financial institutions purchase from external sources are an expense that an increasing number of firms believe can be...

BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLANNING: Banks Get On Wartime Footing: Contingencies are being emphasized as hostilities begin.
April 1, 2003... When it comes to business continuity planning (BCP)-or disaster recovery for the less politically correct-banks are faced with two powerful opposing forces. On the one hand, there was 9-11, not to mention a war with Iraq that has heightened...

Wealth Management: A Younger Crowd Wants More Tech: Using the Internet is routine for a self-directed segment.
April 1, 2003... The market's been in the gutter for two years now and scores of private bankers and brokers are still trying to figure out ways to cater to changes in the behavior of their affluent clients. But there are some experts saying that might not...

The Battle to Bring Annuities Processing Up to Speed.
April 1, 2003... Financial firms have been more successful in automating their information- intensive processes than perhaps any other industry. That is except for fixed- and variable-annuity transactions, which still burden bank advisors with reams of...

MULTI-CHANNEL INTEGRATION: Where Every Door's the Same.
April 1, 2003... Banks are struggling with consistency in how they interact with customers across channels like it or not the branch is here to stay. So is the call center, the ATM and the Internet. And it's imperative that bank executives get these delivery...

Riggs' Branch Rolls with Technology Over Tellers.
April 1, 2003... This is what most bank branches were expected to be like by now. Plasma televisions, wireless laptops, advanced ATMs, and, most importantly, no tellers njoy a cup of coffee, search the Web and cash a check down to the penny at an ATM without...

One Tech Advancement You Can't Live Without.(new technologies in banking)
April 1, 2003... When waxing warmly of a film that stands out above the rest, movie critics are prone to utter the overused phrase, "If you only see one movie this year, make it..." They obviously don't think people are only going to see one film in an entire...

For Web Relaunches, Functionality is Focus.
April 1, 2003... Ring the bell for round two of on-line banking redesigns and relaunches. A new phase of Internet banking emphasizing greater ease-of-use and broader functionality is getting underway. Early last year a number of banks including Bank One,...

Banks Want a Straighter Path to Internet Profits.
April 1, 2003... Without successful cross selling-really successful-a hard return on investment in the Web is difficult to come by. Some banks view their Web investments as a driver of customer retention and acquisition. Others say it drives down the costs of...

Scotia's Got a New Way to Give Itself a Report Card.
April 1, 2003... Like most corporations' various groups, Scotia Capital's investment and corporate banking unit has a lot more to think about when it comes to reporting and forecasting than it did just a couple of years ago. That's led the firm to become an...

Layering Security to Protect Bank Networks.
April 1, 2003... The cost of constantly developing technologies to protect a bank's network has become way too great for most institutions to do on their own. And the number of threats against financial institutions' networks is hardly diminishing; if...

Do You Know Who You're Talking To?
April 1, 2003... Today's consumers are reeling from overload-not enough time, too much work, too many choices and too many messages being thrown at them from all types of media. The only messages that have a chance of sticking in consumers' minds are those...

"Networking" Among Customers.
April 1, 2003... Small and mid-size retail banks today are in a fierce struggle to attract and retain customers in what has become an increasingly competitive marketplace. Changing banks is so simple that consumers will quickly take their business elsewhere...

Facing New ATM Rivals.(retail ATM networks push banks to change customer relationship management practices)
April 1, 2003... Retail banking has experienced a major shift in customer habits and expectations with the advent of the ATM network. There's little question the machines are a boon to banking and its customers who expect the convenience of anytime, anywhere...