Bank Technology News articles from March 2006

Bank Technology News archives from March 2006

Liability: E*Trade Tosses Its Customers A Fraud Lifeline: Consumers aren't liable if they're compromised.(E*TRADE Financial Corp.)
March 1, 2006... Last year, E*Trade made headlines by offering hardware authentication tokens to its brokerage customers. This year, E*Trade is again pushing the security envelope in saying it won't hold customers liable for fraudulent activity on bank or...

Collections: Collecting More Profits: Helping call centers ID accounts to turn around.
March 1, 2006... It's not easy trying to read the true nature of chancy banking customers. Even the most sophisticated investments in account risk management tools don't prevent an industry average of 10 percent to 15 percent of credit or loan accounts winding...

Check Imaging: Image Exchange Emerging...slowly: BB&T, Northern Trust prepare for future growth.(Northern Trust International Banking Corp.)
March 1, 2006... Steve Anderson's strategy to make sure BB&T takes advantage of check innovation is akin to navigating the early stages of a marathon-keep abreast of what the other runners are doing so you don't fall too far behind. But don't race too far...

Edit Index.
March 1, 2006... A ABN Amro 35 Advent Software 18 Akonix 18 Alert Logic 18 AmSouth Bancorp 13 API Outsourcing ...

Letter to Editor.(Letter to the Editor)
March 1, 2006... To the editor: A recent story in the February issue entitled "An Early Look at Corporate Trouble: D&B, Experian Products Gain Bankers' Attention" contained several inaccuracies that should be corrected. First, the article incorrectly...

CIO Survey Indicates Big Change On Their Horizon.
March 1, 2006... Peter Drucker once said that "in a...a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not...

Money Laundering: Correspondent Bankers: How Much Is Enough?: New Treasury guidelines on how banks are to comply with customer and asset identity don't smooth nerves frayed by high-profile busts for lax AML controls.
March 1, 2006... The U.S. Treasury Department's new guidance on how financial services companies are to follow the anti-money laundering guidelines was supposed to codify the risk-based assessments already being done for most correspondent banking...

News Makers.(National Federation for the Blind suing Target for not allowing blinds to use the website)(Discover purchases Pulse)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Web Transaction Fears Rise, But So Does Use RSA's first-ever international Internet Confidence Index shows consumers and businesses in the U.S. and Europe are worried about network vulnerability and identity theft, but it's not quelling...

Top Tech Deals.(Getronics N.V. contracts with Barclays)(Wells Fargo & Co. contracts with Reveleus)(Business Objects S.A. acquires Firstlogic Inc.)
March 1, 2006... Number One Getronics has inked a deal to provide desktop and application management support to Barclays, an arrangement that will cover more than 30,000 users. It's the largest contract ever signed by Getronics, totaling more than $300...

Regulation: Calling On XBRL: Expansion The new call reporting platform for banks may be the push to upgrade SEC and Street disclosure as well.
March 1, 2006... There used to be two deadlines for filing call reports, according to FDIC associate statistics director Martin Henning. The first was the standard quarterly due date for submission to FFIEC agencies. The second was the unofficial window banks...

Techies.(Alert Logic appoints Steve Kahan)(Pulse EFT Association appoints Stan Paur)(William Wray appointed by CrossBeam Systems Inc.)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Alert Logic, a provider of network surveillance and defense solutions, named Steve Kahan as president and CEO. * Stan Paur will become chairman of Pulse EFT Association, an ATM/debit network unit of Discover Financial Services, effective March...

Getting The Message: IM's Here To Stay. And So Are The Security Woes.: While threats to Instant Messaging are quickly on the rise, researchers say companies are lagging in providing adequate security.
March 1, 2006... Instant messaging's always been a bit of a wildcard for firms, which have to grapple with what kind of use and how much access to extend to employees-who in some cases were responsible for the technology's introduction at their workplaces via...

Message Board.
March 1, 2006... "When you see it in Dilbert, you know it's a problem." Omar Hussain, CEO of Imprivata, on how widespread user annoyance is when it comes to juggling multiple user names and passwords. "Just pick up the latest newspaper." David...

Online customer experience: Banks Still Need Better Web Foundation: A new survey from Keane indicates banks and other financial firms know they have to improve the look, feel and capabilities of their sites. First things first, though.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2006... Financial services firms believe that improving the online customer experience can be a significant revenue growth driver. But giving customers the graphical and feature-rich architecture needed to spur more business and screen-time is going to...

Insurance House Finds A New Definition of ROI: Before IT improvements can be made, Golden says it's important to figure out how to define "improvement".(Robert Golden interviewed)(Interview)
March 1, 2006... Robert Golden Director of strategic business services Insurance House When Insurance House named Robert Golden director of strategic business services about two and a half years ago, it was clear to him the firm's technology...

Automating Processing: A New Reconciliation For Product Delivery: Charter One and Suncorp Group find that by centralizing account reconciliations, transactions are more accurate, and risk management and compliance are improved as well.
March 1, 2006... A key component of a financial product's success is how smoothly and accurately a bank can fulfill customer-facing transactions. Institutions like Charter One and the Suncorp Group have found centralizing and automating reconciliations can go a...

Managed Security Services: Joining Security Risk's Four Horses: MSSP players like Getronics and SecureWorks are grabbing a share of a growing market for services that combine risk monitoring, compliance, vulnerability and information protection.
March 1, 2006... The managed security services market continues to attract small banks, and an increasing number of large banks-witness Barclay's recent award of a five-year deal to Getronics to take over management of 30,000 desktops and applications,...

Wealth Management: Powering Alternative Investments With New Tools: IT players line up with new products to take advantage of expansion of instruments such as hedge funds.
March 1, 2006... Hedge funds offer a bedeviling challenge for financial advisors trying to marry their wealthy clients' investment goals with specific hedge funds and then manage that relationship. For starters, each hedge fund is different, with its own...

De Novo Branching: Banks Turn Into Location Scouts: When establishing new locations for branches or banking centers, are banks better off crunching data, or simply keeping an eye out for high-growth regions?
March 1, 2006... It seems obvious, at least in theory: When a bank is looking to expand its reach, opening branches in high-growth areas is the best strategy. But as increasing numbers of banks are turning to data-crunching companies like MapInfo of Troy, NY,...

Cutting To the Chase.
March 1, 2006... New rules under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act require lenders to collect and reveal data on a loan applicant's race, sex and income. Institutions must also share how they determine rate spreads for different applicants. The upside to new...

Biometrics: The Keyboard Has a Good Memory: San Antonio city employees CU has deployed a password management product that remembers user keystroke patterns for less user invasive authentication.(Biopassword)
March 1, 2006... Steve Schipull admits to being at least a little skeptical when he first saw the biometric password product that would eventually become part of his firm's employee authentication arsenal. "It was like, 'Okay, you just type on your keyboard...

Telecom Expense Management: Call Forwarding To Outside Operators: Challenged with managing voice, data and wireless services, BancorpSouth handed telecom billing and procurement to an outsider. That's when the bank finally gained control.
March 1, 2006... If BancorpSouth were to print out its monthly call center phone bill, the Tupelo, MS-based bank's charges could fill 36,000 pages. As infeasible as collating a paper version of the charges would be, what really invokes fainting spells for...

Remote Access: ABN Amro's Keeping Trading Clean: It's using endpoint security in its new Singapore operation.
March 1, 2006... When floor trading in Singapore ended in 2005, ABN Amro saw both an opportunity and a potential danger. By building a new trading floor in the Southeastern Asian nation, the institution hoped to develop floor-trading business in a nation...

Chasing an Elusive Goal: 'Customer of 1'.
March 1, 2006... Few Firms are Maximizing Return on CRM investments, and it's time to inspect the foundation. Financial services firms do not need more customer information-they are deluged with information. Their challenge is synthesizing all of the knowledge...

Address Management Can Help Secure IP Networks.
March 1, 2006... Over the past 15 years, the Internet and the use of IP networks have revolutionized the day-to-day operations of banking, insurance and financial services companies worldwide. Processes that were once reliant on a heavy paper trail have been...

Data-Driven Decisions Can Help Servicers.
March 1, 2006... The risk of mortgage loan defaults has been on a steady rise for some time now, with expensive properties on the West Coast being particularly susceptible to an increasing number of incidents. In the wake of a catastrophic hurricane season,...