Bank Technology News articles from July 2006

Bank Technology News archives from July 2006

Compliance: In ISO-lation: Standards Fill Regs Checklist: Security guidelines trailblaze for following SOX-GLB.(Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, International Organization for Standardization, Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002)
July 1, 2006... Kevin Doyle has found a nice little upside to his efforts at formalizing his institution's information technology security processes: He won't have to worry about Gramm-Leach-Bliley as much. The information security manager for Pennsylvania...

Hand-Held Devices: Mobility's The Trend: IT players see strong viability for portable payments and productivity.
July 1, 2006... Cell phones that pay at the pump or PDAs that finish stock buys at the beach are part of a mobility wave challenging BancorpSouth and Fidelity Investments on new ways of getting business. These same devices, in the palms of internal sales and...

Mortgage Leads: Aegis Polishes Its Triggers: New analytics reveal clues as to when a prospect is ready to make a move.(Aegis Mortgage Corp. contracts with TransUnion corp.)
July 1, 2006... Any mortgage lender can buy leads from an Internet lead aggregator, but leads generated by these trigger events are sold and resold, and have the low conversion rates you might expect. The savviest of financial institutions are redefining...

Edit Index.
July 1, 2006... A,B Accenture 20 Acorn Systems 20 Acquire 14 Aegis 21 Aite Group 14 American Computer Services...

Great Business Minds Think Alike...Or Do They?(SunGard Data Systems plans for technology revolution, Open Source, Common Services Architecture)(Technology Management Conference)
July 1, 2006... The intersection of capitalism and innovation is inevitable. So it's no surprise this reality would bear itself out at the Securities Industry Association's annual Technology Management Conference, where the "cool and competitive technologies"...

Electronic Billing: Partners in Payments: Creditron and MyOnlineBill.com join forces to tap the small volume market.
July 1, 2006... Low- to medium-volume remittance processors have a new choice for electronic billing and payments processing, and banks have a new competitor in the EBPP business, if not a supplier. Creditron and MyOnlineBill.com are partnering to provide the...

News Makers.(A survey for network security spending in banking industry)(A survey for Information technology spending in financial services )(Denny Carreker investigate a sale or merger of Carreker Corp.)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Carreker Eyes Sale; Leadership Ripped Hedge-fund activist Robert Chapman, known for buying into undervalued companies for the purposes of shoving out "derelict" management, has burrowed into Carreker Corp. and apparently prompted CEO Denny...

Biometrics: SmartMetric Points to a New World of Verification: It hopes its smart card-based system finds lots of demand among institutions looking for advanced authentication. The experts say the firm has a chance to accomplish just that.
July 1, 2006... It's hard not to be skeptical of U.S.-based SmartMetric's claim that as the "world's first credit/debit card with embedded fingerprint scanner" their product will "replace today's ATM card," as typical of the hype that's plagued biometrics in...

Top Tech Deals.(Electronic Data Systems Corp. acquired MphasiS BFL Limited)(VeriSign Inc. acquired GeoTrust Inc.)(SecurePipe acquired Farm9)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Number One EDS has acquired a majority stake worth $380 million in MphasiS BFL Limited, an applications and business process outsourcing firm based in Bangalore, India. The move will bolster EDS' offshore delivery capabilities, and will...

Techies.(Friedman Billings Ramsey Group appoints Timothy Wood )(New Century Financial Corp. appoints Colleen Wolf )(Metavante Corp. appoints Michael Hayford)(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... Pia Jorgensen was named CTO of Pacific Northwest powerhouse Washington Mutual. Friedman Billings Ramsey Group announced that Timothy Wood was hired as CIO. Harris Nesbitt, the investment and corporate banking arm of BMO Financial, hired Andrew...

Talking The Talk: Customers are Lost Without Translation: The immigrant, non-English speaking population is growing, but Corporate Insight says Web sites lag in offering foreign language services.
July 1, 2006... One of the fastest-growing new market opportunities for banks comes from immigration, but a new study suggests banks may be missing out on a chance to capture the business of new Americans. Corporate Insight says many financial institutions...

Message Board.
July 1, 2006... "You might be able to track which assets are assigned to which human." - Lois Melbourne, CEO of Acquire, on the complexity of human resources technology. "At least half of data centers...will need refurbishing, if not rebuilding." ...

Expedited Payments: Banks, Billers Adjust to Need for Speed: Consumers are gravitating toward last-minute electronic payment solutions as an answer to their stretched budgets. And they'll gladly pay for the privilege.(Brief article)
July 1, 2006... A cash crunch is starting to hit consumers who are inundated with an average of 14 monthly bills for credit cards, auto loans and utilities. Punitive late fees and universal credit worries are pushing toward expedited payment methods-and a...

Common Bank Server Strategy: Plug 'N Pray: Responsible data center expansion requires efficient use of capacity, not just filling up rack space.(Interview)
July 1, 2006... Banks are struggling to meet the storage, power and cooling requirements of newer servers that crunch customer and operational metrics, says Aperture Technologies CEO William Clifford, former Gartner CEO and ex-ADP executive. In financial...

Small Business: On The Clock, Just Like Customers: Institutions like Fifth Third Bank and California B&T are using fast approvals and processing as a means to boost their small business banking efforts.
July 1, 2006... Managing the need for fast turnaround of small-business loan applications while adhering to pressures for more sophisticated credit-risk monitoring can be like feeding a two-headed monster. A growing number of banks, including the likes of...

Security Management: Cole Taylor's Master Key Scours Its Network.(security information and event management)
July 1, 2006... Erik Hart calls it his "Google" for the IT infrastructure at Cole Taylor Bank in Chicago. Each morning when the information security officer logs into his network, a security information and event management (SIEM) application compiles a...

Measuring Branch Performance: Taking The Guess Out Of The Gaps: Deciding how to rate a branch's bottom line can be sticky for banks. Can a Canadian firm's "blueprint" tool bring a distant footprint into focus?
July 1, 2006... Science, when applied to branch performance measurement, can be blinding. Applying simple profit/ loss standards to locations may overstate a wealthy suburban site and overlook a slow, but promising inner-city center. Judging branches...

Caught off Card.(First Data Corp. has plans for restructuring and selling its divsion Western Union Financial Services Inc.)
July 1, 2006... Faced with stepped up competition from rival TSYS and in need of a strong comeback following the loss of JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America as customers, First Data Corp. has embarked on a "concept of one" restructuring that involves selling...

Can't Get a Bank Loan? Try Asking Your Online Peers.: As consumer debt increases and banks tighten standards, peer-to-peer lending exchanges are emerging as an unconventional alternative. What follows are excerpts from a new TowerGroup report.
July 1, 2006... Since its inception, the Internet has proved to be a disconcerting force. However, it is also a key enabler that has empowered consumers. eBay, the world's largest online trading community, is evidence of this empowerment and, to some extent,...

Customer Service: MWA's Open 24/7 Without Staffers: Outsourcing provides real-time service to the member bank's Web operation without adding lots of its own customer-facing employees or expensive facilities.
July 1, 2006... Steve Ollenburg doesn't have to look far to find evidence of how Webified banking has become, and will continue to be as younger generations become older. "If you look at my teenagers, they mock my wife when she takes out her checkbook,"...

Financial Crime: Using Security to Create Insecurity: Nobody said phishers weren't creative. The newest slate of attacks includes crooks luring victims by inviting them to share personal info as part of a "security check.".
July 1, 2006... About this time last year many financial institutions thought the worst of the phishing phase was over, but the latest attacks show that fraudsters haven't given up, just spent some time doing R&D on novel approaches to stealing consumer data....

HR Management: Automating Pay Incentives is a Bonus: New Century and North Fork are finding the benefits in automating workflow and compensation range from lower costs to higher accuracy and transparency.
July 1, 2006... Just about everyone who works for North Fork Bank-from the tellers to the executive team-has performance bars to clear before incentive payments are triggered. The incentives are supposed to keep everyone's eyes on the ball, but keeping an...

Go Phish: How To Prevent Identity Fraud.
July 1, 2006... Phishing is on the rise and shows no signs of waning. In 2005, phishing attacks increased in frequency and sophistication. In 2006, this trend is expected to continue with variations on phishing including spear phishing (targeted attacks),...