Bank Technology News articles from December 2006

Bank Technology News archives from December 2006

Securities: Brokers Dive Into the Pool of Dark Liquidity: Will they get all wet? Or will block trading system take off?
December 1, 2006... What the market for dark liquidity pools needs is a little light. So says Paul Hanson, a director at Alberta Market Solutions, a capital markets infrastructure specialist in Canada. The market for these huge anonymous block trades "should...

Profitability: When is the Price Right: BB&T's new price optimization strategy bodes well for optimizing profits.
December 1, 2006... When it comes to setting prices for financial products, you can never have too much data to help make your decision. "You bring as many variables into place as possible," says Dan Rozelle, vp and product manager for the sales finance...

Image Capture: Check Scans Save Time and Money: Small banks embracing branch image capture.(branch image capture)
December 1, 2006... Typing an extra 50 keystrokes per transaction leaves tellers with a lot less time to pitch home refis and CDs to account holders. That at least is the thinking at many small banks these days, and it's leading them to deploy front-line check...

Edit Index.
December 1, 2006... A ABN Amro 24 Able N.V. 18 Aite Group 18 Alberta Market Solutions 18 Alogent 64 American Express 27 ANZ Banking 31 Austin Bank 62 B Bank of America 24 Bank of Montreal 20 ...

Hold the Phones: Mobile Commerce Is Here.(introduced by BancorpSouth Inc.)
December 1, 2006... The debate over when, or if, mobile banking would take off came to a hard stop in November when BancorpSouth, an $11.9 billion-asset institution based in Tupelo, MS, went live with a mobile banking and payments application allowing its Cingular...

Phishing: URL Deceit: Who's on The Beat?: The 'Citibank.com' domain name is available to anybody who wants it (including phishers). Is a free market in all domain names a common good?
December 1, 2006... Phishing losses are expected to hit $2.8 billion this year, and some security experts are beginning to wonder if Internet domain name registrars and resellers are enabling some obvious ruses; specifically, should they traffic in bank-related...

News Makers.(survey on internet fraud)(National Notary Association's electronic notarization)(information technology expenditure in financial services)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... PHISHERS INCREASE ATTACKS ON THE RICH Phishing appears to have graduated into a demographic art form. In a new survey from Gartner, the research firm says high-income ($100,000-up) earners are becoming the targets-and victims-of more...

Top Tech Deals.(Metavante Corp. contracts with Yodlee Inc.)(Panini S.p.A. contracts with TASQ Technology)(Jack Henry acquired US Banking Alliance)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Number One Metavante has entered into an agreement with Yodlee that combines Metavante's electronic bill payment with Yodlee's proprietary card payment functionality, and integrates Yodlee products with Metevante's e-bill payment...

Procurement: BMO is Taking Credit Card Technology to School: Bank of Montreal unit is helping school districts and municipalities shave costs through a new credit card program and rebates.
December 1, 2006... It's almost like frequent flier miles-only in this case it involves schools buying supplies and building points toward rebates instead of business travelers earning points toward additional trips. "If a school district spends a million...

Email: Personal Email Use at Work Creates Big Security Risks: A new survey says use of personal Web-based email at work is growing, creating many threats to businesses.
December 1, 2006... It sounds innocuous, employees sending files from work to "home" email addresses so they can do work from home or on the road. But the practice can open up companies to all sorts of risks, even without the company or the employee knowing it....

Techies.(Federal National Mortgage Association appointed Rahul Merchant)(Nietech Corp. appointed Don Dunbar)(SunGard Data Systems Inc. appointed Bill Nosal )(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Rahul Merchant was hired as CIO at Fannie Mae, where he will oversee all of the technology efforts and strategy for the government sponsored enterprise. * Don Dunbar was named president and CEO of payment technology company Nietech Corp. * Doug...

Message Board.
December 1, 2006... "It's part art and part science." Dan Rozelle, vp, BB&T, on price optimization. "It's been a critical error in the industry in referring to these as 'dark pools.'" Rob Hegarty, managing director, TowerGroup, on the SEC's interest...

Direct Banking: Hybrid Brick 'N Click Model Targets the Likes of ING: What's at stake? The high-yield savings accounts, for one thing, attracted by direct banks. Celent predicts they could capture one-fifth of online deposits over the next five years.(ING DIRECT)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... After direct banking landed with a late '90s thud (remember Wingspan?), the concept has made a comeback with viable examples of Internet-only players (ING Direct, E*Trade) attracting billions in new deposits through high-yield savings accounts...

Guiding Institutions Along The Bleeding Edge: John Fricke, the FSTC's new chief of staff, is charged with finding guidance for a range of new technologies.(Financial Services Technology Consortium )(Interview)
December 1, 2006... Since becoming chief of staff for the Financial Services Technology Consortium this fall, John Fricke's plate has gotten pretty full very fast; the range of projects include imaging, business continuity and mobile payments. In each case,...

Corporate Payments: Easing, Expanding Use of E-Signatures: A double digital signature pilot from Citigroup and IdenTrust may prove a turning point in the quest to ease corporate treasury headaches and expand the transaction banking business.(Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication )
December 1, 2006... About 150 global companies with multiple banking relationships have been drawn to the SWIFT network to interact with their banks, utilizing both SWIFT's accessibility and PKI-based security standards. But those connections have been limited...

Mutual Funds: Schwab Offers a Blue Light Special: By deploying CheckFree technology, the broker is trimming service costs.
December 1, 2006... Since the markets began recovering about four years ago mutual fund advisory assets have exploded. Now Charles Schwab is looking to capture its share by using remote processing technology to shave costs for consumers. Schwab, which did not...

Web Research: Lendingtree Feeds Financial Appetites: The company is offering Internet feeds so customers can gather information when making big financial decisions. And it's good market research for LendingTree as well.
December 1, 2006... For most consumers making decisions on personal finance matters can pose a challenge. LendingTree is hoping to ease that burden, while at the same time conducting valuable market research for its own use. The firm has debuted its Smart...

Gaining Steam to Go Green: The largest global financial services organizations generate about 500,000 metric tons of CO2 per year, and IT electricity consumption accounts for up to 65 percent of the total. Reducing an institution's carbon footprint isn't just the environmentally correct thing to do, it's a way to conserve energy and save money by operating more efficient facilities-and that will make shareholders happy.
December 1, 2006... As companies become increasingly information intensive, particularly those in the financial industry, the infrastructure required to support them is growing out of control-and so are the carbon emissions. The largest global financial services...

Web Server Capacity: Austin Bank Wants To Lighten its Load: A victim of its own success, the community bank's quick growth has forced it to find a solution for overtaxed Web servers. Load balancing has provided the answer.
December 1, 2006... Austin Bank's Internet operation faces two major challenges: Web site congestion from heavy use, and slow ISP technology across its rural footprint. The problems are partially due to the East Texas-based community bank's fast growth-its...

IT Infrastructure: Sallie Mae Uses ITIL To Break Down Silos: As the student loan giant sheds its ties to Uncle Sam, it's embracing the IT Infrastructure Library to shore up IT structure and processes.
December 1, 2006... The SLM Corporation has made a lot of big changes to its business in the past few years, not the least of which is its new approach to IT service and support. "We have taken literally hundreds of different practices and consolidated them...

Lenders Must Focus on New Mortgage Tech: Predictive mortgage sourcing can give lenders the ability to proactively identify and reach the target customer.
December 1, 2006... During the recent mortgage lending boom lenders extensively focused on increasing their loan portfolios and their market shares rather than addressing future technology investments and innovations. With the boom appearing to end, lenders now...