Bank Technology News articles from March 2005

Bank Technology News archives from March 2005

Helping The Unbanked: U.N. Pressures U.S. Banks To Fight Poverty: Technology helps global microlending to expand.
March 1, 2005... Getting more banks to aim their latest technologies at improving the operational model of micro-lending is key to ensuring that the International Year of Microcredit is a success, say supporters. The United Nations-sponsored global effort...

Imaging: Is Merchant Capture Banks' New Rapture?: Sterling Savings is among early adopters.
March 1, 2005... When Check 21 went into effect last fall, there was initially much concern that banks would use the new rule to process customer checks in real time, thus eliminating the float and causing a wave of bounced checks. It didn't happen, of course....

Crime: Crooks Get Behind Plow: 'Pharming' harvests a new crop of thieves.
March 1, 2005... As if phishing scams weren't bad enough, security experts have found a new "phlavor" of the month: "Pharming." What is pharming? It operates on the same principle as phishing by fooling on-line users into thinking they're at a legitimate...

Edit Index.
March 1, 2005... A Abbey National 12 ABN Amro Mortgage Corp. 24 Akonix Systems 19 America Online 43 Axiom 30 B Bank...

Open Letter To BofA: Put Your 'Higher Standards' Into Play.(Bank of America)
March 1, 2005... There are battles worth fighting and then there are wars worth winning. Bank of America-faced with a lawsuit from a Miami businessman alleging the bank failed to protect him from on-line banking risks-must decide that the latter is far more...

Managing Risk: Fifth Third Fights Scrutiny With Automation: Financial wires continue big-time growth, but new risk technology is also result of compliance worries.
March 1, 2005... The increased focus on regulatory compliance in the new decade reverberates across the corporate world in ways large and small. At Cincinnati-based Fifth Third, it has provided the spark to automate a nineteenth-century business: internal wire...

News Makers.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... B-to-B payments seen going electronic by '08 While paper checks remain the primary method of U.S. business-to-business payments, new TowerGroup research argues a "tipping point" is approaching. A combination of electronic-payment options...

Top Tech Deals.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Number one Equifax bought APPRO Systems, a provider of automated credit risk- management and financial technology, for $92 million. APPRO generated more than $20 million in annual revenue last year and has about 150 financial clients. ...

Techies.(appointments)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... New York-based Carver Bancorp named Fred Benedicto CIO, where he will oversee IT among other functions at the bank. Frank Deaton was named Carver's svp of operations. * Vocent Solutions, a provider of voice security solutions, announced that...

Message Board.
March 1, 2005... "You have to moderate your growth." Robert Franko, President and CEO of Beach Business Bank, on the need to keep expansion in line with technology's ability to remain compliant. "When they go home, they want to see what happened." ...

Faked Identities: ID Thieves Are Inventing Their Own Identities: Synthetic identity theft is costing three times as much as traditional "true-name" ID heists.
March 1, 2005... It hasn't gotten much attention yet, but there's a breed of identity fraud where the identity itself is faked. As strange as that sounds, statistics are emerging that suggest synthetic identity theft is substantially more dangerous than...

Spending: U.S., Canadian Banks Focus On New Technologies In '05: Technologies in branch automation, payments and multi-channel integration are top of mind. Oh, and yes, security.
March 1, 2005... North American banks are expected to spend $28.2 billion on retail-banking technology this year, according to a report by Celent Communications analyst Jacob Jegher. That's about two-thirds of the $44.3 billion banks in the U.S. and Canada...

A California Startup Gets To Know Its Customers: De novos like Beach Business grapple with getting up and running while following stringent regulations.
March 1, 2005... There was a time someone could almost literally walk off the street and open a bank account with as little ID as a driver's license-and not even a real one at that. And if he was really ambitious, he could open 10 accounts at 10 banks by just...

Mortgage: E-standards Alliance Attracts More Allies: A MISMO-linked consortium of technology vendors hoping to extend electronic mortgages opens its borders and gains new participants, such as Hyland. The group's success remains to be seen.(Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization )
March 1, 2005... There's a growing list of tech companies that hope mortgage lenders will look for the MISMO label when searching for vendors, as firms which sell hardware, software and platforms fight for position in the paperless home loan finance market. ...

Brokerage: Vancouver Remote To Ground Control: Coast Capital outfits brokers with remote access capabilities, enabling quicker sales of mortgages, retail products and insurance.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2005... Andrew Banman is on a ferry off the coast of Canada headed for Vancouver, talking on the mobile already at 8 in the morning, his mind on moving numbers. He's hardly a slick-shoed executive on the road for a multinational-but executives at...

Privacy Versus Profits: For Consumers, Not Sharing Is Caring: For firms like SunTrust and LaSalle, protecting consumers sense of security is winning the tug of war over the revenue-enhancing notion of making data available to third parties.
March 1, 2005... Consumers' snowballing fear of ID theft along with new regulation mandating better information security and disclosure of breaches are compelling banks to reconcile the conflicting goals of protecting privacy and optimizing information for...

Retention: Finding Ways To Keep The Best Customers: Why do people leave their banks? To slow attrition, Hibernia, Frost, Wells and Wachovia are taking a hard look at what keeps clients happy and which employee incentives work best.
March 1, 2005... Frost Bank in San Antonio, TX, saw an alarming trend with its checking-account attrition rates last year. The percentage of new customers lost in the first six months was nearly double the bank's average client erosion rate in one year. ...

Choice and Consequence: The Internet and call center are the branch's remote and, at times, impersonal second cousins, but make them second fiddle at your peril. A customer's descent into automation hell can be the difference between a better relationship and a lost one.
March 1, 2005... Like a child that quickly grows older, the Internet can no longer be considered a youngster when it comes to its place as a service channel. In less than a decade, banks have gone from Web pages that were little more than one-dimensional...

It's Easy to Draw Anger.(bank and customer relations)
March 1, 2005... After nearly two years of field research on customer service at banks, First Manhattan Consulting Group's managing vp Gordon Goetzmann doesn't hesitate to draw a broad conclusion. "When you look at the interaction among call center, on-line and...

The Fifth Column.(Column)
March 1, 2005... Last fall, HFC Bank, a U.K.-based subsidiary of HSBC, e-mailed 2,600 of its Marbles credit card customers with a message marked urgent, asking them to contact the bank within 24 hours. But the employee at the bank sending out the e-mail...

Business Continuity: Hiring Web Scouts To Find Service Glitches.(Dotcom Monitor )
March 1, 2005... Products that give institutions alerts about Web downtime before consumers complain about the problems themselves can thwart customer irritation and loss an industry where trust and service is critical, a bank can't afford to receive word that...

Security Liability: BofA Lawsuit Could Give Authentication A Boost: Florida businessman says $90,000-plus was illegally transferred to Latvian bank.
March 1, 2005... A small-business owner's lawsuit against Bank of America over a $90,000-plus unauthorized wire transfer from his business account could prompt the banking industry to spend more for on-line security. The fraudulent transaction occurred after...

Internet Banking: Emigrant Migrates Across The Nation: The long-time New York-area bank hopes the Internet and a high introductory interest rate will help it reach parts of the country where it has no physical presence.
March 1, 2005... The Web has allowed lots of companies in lots of businesses to win customers in areas where a physical presence isn't possible, either because of geographic or economic reasons. Emigrant Savings Bank, a 150-year-old institution that's well...

Money Management: Wells Fargo Gives Consumers Their Spending Report: A new product organizes check and credit card transactions, giving customers a view of where their money is going By Lee Conrad.
March 1, 2005... Wells Fargo launched an on-line money management tool in mid-February that is designed to give customers a consolidated view of their expenses. The service, called My Spending Report, combines check card and credit card spending, as well as...

Knowledge Management: Aiming For Better Insight Into Clients: Automating customer info allows banks and brokers such as Raymond James and ING Belgium to analyze data at a higher level, which aids in service and marketing.
March 1, 2005... More banks and brokers are tapping knowledge management to understand their businesses and customers, whether it's in tailoring marketing campaigns for specific segments or to comply with reporting requirements. After automating and...

All New Architecture Must Serve the Business.
March 1, 2005... Corporations must periodically reinvent themselves to prosper. Reborn, they need new nervous and circulatory systems-otherwise known as information technology and communications infrastructure. How to achieve their replacement is the...

Imaging Yields a Cornucopia of Customer Data.
March 1, 2005... Check 21 is more than it may first appear. Beyond the increased efficiencies and additional infrastructure requirements of Check 21 lie a host of opportunities for financial institutions to bolster their competitive position. By leveraging the...