Bank Technology News articles from July 2005

Bank Technology News archives from July 2005

Regulation: Abiding By The Law Is One Expensive Task: SOX is pushing compliance costs toward $10 billion.
July 1, 2005... A "scrum" is how former rugby player John Hurlock, a practice manager for regulatory compliance at Metavante Corp., describes the current battle between emboldened regulators and public companies. The scrum has become an expensive one, too:...

Retooling Higher Education: Wachovia Deals With A Fast Crowd: Its lending plays to an Internet-savvy generation.
July 1, 2005... For Wachovia Education Finance, students on their way to college have already acquired a certain degree of technological knowledge, so it stands to reason that catering to that intellect is part and parcel of winning new student loan business....

Security: Verifying Customers: Authentication tools key on external factors.
July 1, 2005... Remembering a pet's name or changing a password shouldn't be that hard. But apparently plenty of on-line banking customers, even with the security of their own funds at stake, would rather not be bothered with the extra authentication devices...

Edit Index.
July 1, 2005... A, B Advanced Financial Solutions 1 AIG 26 Alltell Information Services 33 American Bankers Association 13 Appalachian Community Bank 22 Bank of America ...

Securing Customer Data Gets Tougher Each Day.
July 1, 2005... MasterCard's recent admission that 40 million customers could be affected by the lastest in a string of high-profile breaches has bankers scrambling to keep up with security threats. When bankers refer to fraud publicly, it often comes off...

Profiling: The DNA Of Fraud Rings: ID Analytics spent two years studying criminals who traffic in fake and stolen IDs. It discovered the ways how they succeed-and how they don't. It isn't pretty.
July 1, 2005... Do some crooks plan their vacations on a "same time, next year" basis, like the Chicago Cubs in late October? Mike Cook, vp of products for ID Analytics, can't be sure. But from the identity verification vendor's new research into the...

News Makers.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... Credit Card Security: Priceless MasterCard International reported possibly the widest breach yet of consumer data when it notified financial institutions that 13.9 million MasterCard-branded cards, and up to 40 million cards of all brands,...

Disclosing Losses: Banks Deal With Muddy Data-Regulation Waters: New interagency guidance rules on notification are supposed to give banks a flexible roadmap. It looks more like a maze.
July 1, 2005... It was a meeting of several hours' length, one that required the attendance of a senior policy analyst and several of his FDIC colleagues in Washington, D.C. Another breach of a bank's customer data was on the table, and the agency was...

Top Tech Deals.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... Number One In an effort to augment its service management capabilities, IBM plans to acquire Isogon Corp., a private usage tracking software firm. IBM will combine its own license management software with Isogon's product. Number Two...

Counterattacks: The Industry And Government Fight Back: While real-time theft protections start to hit the market, the Hill ponders penalties for spyware abuse.
July 1, 2005... Politicians, financial execs and tech firms have long promised to stay one step ahead of criminals who use technology to commit crimes, but the increasing severity of activity in terms of both the number of thefts and the size of those thefts,...

Techies.(Appointments of Software professionals)(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... Michael Field has been appointed EVP of the newly established technology banking division of Bridge Bank, a subsidiary of Bridge Capital Holdings. * Bank of New York has named John Fiore EVP and head of investor services technology. Joseph...

Message Board.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... "Not all banks are taking on-line threats as seriously as they should." Vishvas Patel, VP, Identrus, on the fact that only 22 banks are issuing the consortium's identity credentials. "One of the constituencies of high net worth is...

Adoption: Big Broadband Buy-In Feeds On-Line Banking: New research from Celent says broadband is hitting big, on par with the largest technology hits of the last 50 years. And on-line banking is front and center on the acceptance curve.(Brief Article)
July 1, 2005... Only once in the modern era has a new technology gained a household footing as quickly as Internet access. When the three major TV broadcast networks began offering colorized prime-time offerings in 1965-12 years after the FCC established...

Cracking Small Business 'Nut' for Direct Deposit.
July 1, 2005... When Alan Koenigsberg asks for a show of hands from who doesn't get paid via direct deposit, it hardly matters that it's during a conference call. The ubiquity of the virtual paycheck, with adoption well north of 60 percent, means Koenigsberg,...

Money Market Funds: Speed Always Wins: A treasurer's heart Web-based platforms that quickly aggregate funds through portals are gaining favor, winning interest from Comerica, the Bank of New York, Wells Fargo and Mellon.
July 1, 2005... Treasurers are considered vital to corporate business because their needs can span a wide array of banking products, and keeping them happy often hinges on saving them time. If banks can make a corporate client's plain- vanilla, daily money...

Communications: Automated Talking Gets More Complex: Interactive voice messaging-the next step beyond traditional interactive voice response-gives banks a shot at more proactive customer relationship management. But are there options?
July 1, 2005... Interactive voice response is getting a tuneup at some institutions, which are adding interactive voice messaging to the mix of communications options for customers. IVM is a detailed automated interaction with major ramifications for...

Profitability: Appalachian's Renovated Transactions Boost Profits: Community bank's earnings jump after overhauling subtle revenue drivers like deposit classification and customer service.
July 1, 2005... In just a couple of years as evp and CFO of Appalachian Community Bank, Darren Cantlay has seen his institution's profitability performance jump from the lower quarter of community banks to the upper quarter, with at least part of the credit...

customer service: Advanced channels should improve the experience: As channels become more advanced, the potential for equipment pitfalls grows, threatening the customer experience.
July 1, 2005... Glitches in communications technology are nothing new, but as the means with which banks interact with customers broaden and become more advanced, the potential for potholes that can misdirect, interrupt customers or otherwise annoy them enough...

Silicon East.
July 1, 2005... Baltic and Scandinavian states have become a hotbed of technology development and a lab for young techies. The implications are surfacing in everything from game software to financial services. Is this the new Silicon hub? And can it be that...

Another Rung on the Ladder.
July 1, 2005... Customers want speed. And they certainly have no patience for inconsistency between channels. That's one reason for banks to combine fully their business silos once and for all. And if impatient customers aren't enough, the regulatory call to...

Service On-line: Even House Calls Are A Retention Play: Firms ranging from Citibank to Provident are rolling out bells and whistles to save business in the finicky channel. One institution is even making visits to set up accounts.
July 1, 2005... Quick options are the very nature of the Internet, and the transitory and finicky nature of the channel is leading institutions to pull out all the stops-everything from instant messaging and customized conversations to house calls-to keep...

Web-based Estate Planning: Northern Trust Gives Its Disks The Slip: Putting its library of will and trust info on-line is expected to improve relationships with speed-craving estate lawyers. They who can now build customized documents in minutes.
July 1, 2005... Estate-planning technology for Northern Trust once meant trolling through reams of forms that were stored on disks mailed to the mix of lawyers and practitioners that used the firm's services in desktop fashion. In a scene as '80s as Gordon...

Grid Computing: The Grid Is Going Mainstream Fast: The systems have come far from their roots, and are now maturing. Ohio Savings, Wachovia and CSFB are getting their feet wet, as the GSEs use it to clean up regulatory trouble.
July 1, 2005... Grid computing may still sound fringe to buttoned-down comptrollers looking over technology budgets at small Midwestern thrifts. They've got a point-grids came into being out of academic research labs and NASA's need for physicists. But...

Check Conversion: Is Rising Arc Rate Bad For Check 21?: As accounts-receivable check conversion explodes, the pace of Check 21 adaptation remains in question. That's true especially if business check conversion takes hold in the industry.(accounts-receivable check conversion)
July 1, 2005... Much ink has been spilled about the implications of Check 21 for banking and how it will increase efficiencies and lower costs for banks. But there is a growing revelation that accounts-receivable check conversion, implemented two years ago,...

Assurance Seals On Web Sites Aren't Foolproof.(Web-assurance seals)
July 1, 2005... One of the main reasons electronic commerce is not reaching its potential is because of on-line shoppers' distrust. The computer screen replaces the human interaction of a brick-and-mortar store. The consumer engages in transactions often with...

GLBA Puts Bank E-Mail Firmly On the Hot Seat.(Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act ()
July 1, 2005... Just recently, one of the world's largest banks announced that it had lost computer data containing the personal information of an estimated 1.2 million federal employees, including some members of the U.S. Senate. Predictably, we are beginning...