Bank Technology News articles from March 2007

Bank Technology News archives from March 2007

Business Intelligence: The Exec Suite Gets 'SMART': Countrywide's putting executive information reports on dashboards.(strategic mission achieved through re-design and transformation)
March 1, 2007... Countrywide executives hope 2007 will be a smart year for its business intelligence rollout. For the Calabasas, Ca.-based institution that specializes in real estate finance, correspondent lending and other financial services, "SMART"...

Web Risk: A Growing Web's Harder To Secure: New Web 2.0 functions up the ante for safety.
March 1, 2007... Wells Fargo blogger Charles Riggs took a hit not long ago to one of his posts, the subject being long-ago publicity photos he'd turned up from the vaults featuring one of the bank's stagecoaches and the cast of a throwaway 1940s western flick....

Anti-Malware: Calling Off the Watchdogs: Bank opts out of anti-virus protection for whitelisting approach.(First National Bank of Texas)
March 1, 2007... Like a lot of bank IT administrators, Brent Rickels had his fill of the spam and spyware deluge that has increased tenfold since 2002. So he did something about it for First National Bank of Bosque County (TX) last year: He chucked all of the...

Edit Index.
March 1, 2007... A Aberdeen Research 26 American Express 26 Apollo Enterprise Solutions 13 Ariba 24 AXA 24 B Banco Santander 24 Bank of America 26 BasePoint 12 BECU 30 BIDS Trading 13 BillMonk...

ID Theft Needs Little Fuel to Fan The Flames. Or Does It?(Javelin Strategy & Research on identity fraud)
March 1, 2007... When dealing with controversial subject matter, it's a given that, from time to time, there will be intense exchanges of opinions. Identity fraud, and the swirling debate around the number of victims affected and the losses associated with the...

Authentication: RBS's Digital ID Cost Cuts: By deploying a digital hosted platform, it's hoping to save as much as $9 million over the next five years.(Royal Bank of Scotland PLC's TrustAssured solution)(Identrus L.L.C.)
March 1, 2007... The act of verifying someone's ID before they can transact with a company doesn't mean the same thing for every interaction, particularly for large firms that do business in a number of countries with widely varied customers, such as the Royal...

News Makers.(Federal Trade Commission's report on identity theft)(American Customer Satisfaction Index of online brokers)(implementation of multifactor authentication in banks)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... UofM: ONLINE BROKERS' CONSUMER CRED IS UP Online brokers hit a new high in the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index for the fourth quarter of 2006. The national indicator of customer evaluations of product quality...

Top Tech Deals.(CheckFree Corp. acquired Corillian Corp .)(VSoft licensing agreement with Diebold Election Systems Inc.)(Obopay acquired BillMonk)(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Number One CheckFree entered into an agreement to buy Corillian, a deal that will bring together Corillian's online banking platform and complimentary suite of financial products and CheckFree's electronic billing and payment services....

Mortgage Securities: Slow MBS Market Hikes Fraud Risk: Technology vendors are selling products that ferret out fraud in secondary market pools.(mortgage-backed securities)
March 1, 2007... Investment banks that buy mortgage-backed securities have a deeper worry than the billion-dollar estimate of fraud in lending each year. The fear is that it could be much worse. Foreclosures and delinquencies are rising, and with it the...

Email Mistakes: Giving Away the Store, Without Knowing it: Inside jobs don't have to be the work of disgruntled employees. New research suggests most email-related exposure of sensitive data is accidental.
March 1, 2007... It's a scenario that happens often, perhaps thousands and thousands of times each day for a bank that's mid-sized or larger. A customer emails the customer service department with a question about his account, sending along his name,...

Techies.(EagleBank appointed Linda Lacy )(Apollo Enterprise Solutions appointed Ceasar Verdelli )(Financial Services Technology Consortium appointed Marty Plevel and Randy Till )(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... Linda Lacy was promoted to svp of the IT department at EagleBank. * Ceasar Verdelli has joined Apollo Enterprise Solutions as CTO. * The Financial Services Technology Consortium named Marty Plevel of KPMG and Randy Till of MasterCard Worldwide...

Message Board.
March 1, 2007... "The gap starts at pre-enrollment." Jamie Spriggs, president, ConnectYourCare, on consumer awareness of HSAs. "It's a much more secure process than cash on hand in your wallet." Dan Schatt, senior analyst, Celent, on NFC-enabled...

Identity Fraud: ID Theft Victims, Losses Take Welcome Nosedive: New account vulnerabilities are toughened, but 'vishing,' limited alerts practices and consumers' misguided personal trust in acquaintances still leave the doors wide open.(Brief article)
March 1, 2007... For the first time in four years, identity theft is no longer a $50 billion drain on banks, companies and consumer victims. Not that it's tenable at $49.3 billion, of course, but that 2006 fraud estimate represents a welcome decline from...

Conversion's the Word In '07 e-Payments Drive: Electronic remittance, automated exceptions, back office conversion and other breakthroughs appear on the horizon as the next phase for remote capture.(National Automated Clearing House Association)(Interview)
March 1, 2007... It's going to be a transitional year for NACHA, says chairman Steve Ellis, who is also an executive at Wells Fargo. The new back-office conversion rule kicks off in March to permit new check electronification options. New transactional fees are...

Customer Education: Knowledge Is The Path To Healthy HSAs: There's a knowledge gap among consumers and employers about HSAs, ranging from how they work to how much they cost. A handful of institutions are trying to fix that.
March 1, 2007... A couple of years into the consumer-directed healthcare era, and it's clear that the President, Congress and most banks like instruments such as health savings accounts a great deal-enough that HSAs were as highly touted in the State of the...

Mobile Payments: Fair Play In HSBC Phone Pay Trial: Accounting for issuer, carrier and merchant interests is a key advance for this contactless pilot.(HSBC Credit Card Services)
March 1, 2007... HSBC's credit card unit, which has more than a million contactless cards already in circulation, is now taking a look at adding the cell phone as a contactless payment option with a test trial involving 200 HSBC employees. HSBC Credit Card...

Sales Information: Market Intel Can Equal A Fast Deal: Citizens Business Bank is using a Web-based information portal to arm its sales force with industry information, aiding the bank in making fast and sophisticated sales calls.
March 1, 2007... When a team of sales reps from Citizens Business Bank visit a printing firm to pitch a new financial product, their hope of an efficient, successful sale will get a boost from their ability to slip nuggets of industry information into the...

Following the money.(banking industry and invoices)
March 1, 2007... Pens and cleaning contracts might not seem like a big deal. But, over time, such operating expenses add up, and often have a larger-than-expected impact on the bottom line, something that rarely escapes the attention of top executives. A new...

Online Cards: Citi Changes Pitch For Users' Wishes: A new site redesign includes an easier card selection tool modeled after best-practice e-shopping experiences and reflecting the urgency in converting savvier card shoppers.(CITI CARDS)
March 1, 2007... Dude, you're getting a Diamond Preferred Rewards American Express. In an emulation of self-directed e-shopping sites like Dell and Amazon, Citi Cards has launched a major revamp of its card application site that engages prospects with a...

Instant Issuance: Branch-Issued Cards Ripe for Rollout: With new cost advantages and additional interchange for the taking, credit and debit issuance at the branch is getting another look with banks.
March 1, 2007... Instant issuance has been the TV dinner of banking services. It is quick and convenient, but seemingly nothing special for what amounts to getting a credit or debit card in a new customer's hands only five or so days earlier than normal. ...

'Flat' Earth to Give Rise to Semantic Web.
March 1, 2007... Envision a world where today's steep trends of globalization and innovation continue to "flatten" the world. Where the aspiring middle classes of nascent countries have reached critical mass and demand a wide array of choices to meet their...

Losses Rise If Reputation is Compromised.
March 1, 2007... Financial institutions are in the business of managing risk. As such, they are adept at mitigating credit, market, legal, operational, and liquidity risk using complex, numeric structures and discrete models. Paradoxically, through the years,...