Bank Technology News articles from November 2006

Bank Technology News archives from November 2006

Risk Mitigation: Key to Safety: Alerts Aid Authentication: Javelin says involve users more to stop ID theft.
November 1, 2006... Cleveland-based KeyBank decided to open up communication with its online customers this year. When an account funds transfer occurs or a new payee is added to a bill pay list, Key now sends out an e-mail alert. If a PIN, password or address...

Security: Access Privileges Converge: Combining physical and network access a logical step.
November 1, 2006... Even with a mother lode invested in both lock-sure physical access and network security, an East Coast financial firm didn't account for its vulnerability to a coffee break. During a compliance audit tour of a secured testing area, an...

Outsourcing: A Value Play in the Middle: Hedge funds looking anew at outsourcing for trade confirmation, reconciliation.(J.P. Morgan Chase and Co. (New York, New York))
November 1, 2006... Earlier this year, JPMorgan Chase bolstered its outsourcing capabilities for the hedge fund industry by buying the middle- and back-office operations of Paloma Partners Management Co. in order to offer those functions to other funds. It...

Edit Index.
November 1, 2006... A ABN Amro 29 Aite Group 52 Alfresco 29 Allster 25 AmbironTrustWave 41 Ameriquest Mortgage 52 American Bank of Texas 31 AmSouth 44 Asia Payments System 25 ATM Direct 41 B Baker...

Rule #1: Innovation Is the Path To Long-Term Profitability.
November 1, 2006... Get a bunch of bank executives together and it doesn't take long for the conversation to turn into a quarterly earnings discussion. It isn't much loftier on the technology side of the house, where CIOs are pressed for ways to quickly deliver a...

Data Governance: Struggling with the Numbers Crunch: Banks collect large volumes of data to guide their strategies. But much of that output is too fragmented and redundant to help.
November 1, 2006... Banks compile ever more diverse sets of data to help decipher business strategy and compliance issues. But they are discovering a problem with their analytical operations: the data itself. The glut of new information gleaned from siloed...

News Makers.(MasterCard International Inc.'s text-messaging service)(Experian Information Solutions Inc. introduces Credit Insure)(Fiserv Inc.'s Jeff Yabuki outlines management techniques)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... TEXT MESSAGING ISN'T ONLY FOR TEENAGERS MasterCard handles more than two million calls a year from traveling cardholders looking for an ATM. Now through a text-messaging service, the payments company can send the information to users' cell...

Top Tech Deals.(Sun Microsystems Inc. acquiring Neogent)(NOVA Information Systems Inc. acquiring Discover Financial Services Inc.)(Fidelity National Information Services contract with FIS' Card Services )(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Number One Open Solutions, Inc., which offers core processing, Internet and other technology services to banks and credit unions, was acquired by the Carlyle Group and Providence Equity Partners. The funds will pay $38 for each share of...

Compliance: Banks Rounding the Corner to Meet FFIEC Guidance Deadline: Will most institutions have compliant multifactor authentication in place by year's end? It depends.(Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council)
November 1, 2006... It's a matter of weeks now until new federal guidance for user authentication comes on-line. At mid-year data experts figured four-fifths of financial institutions weren't ready for the deadline; now it appears it will by and large be met, but...

IT Investing: Spend Money to Make Money? Not Always.: New research says only about a third of execs are confident their business is getting maximum returns on technology investments. But the news isn't all bad.
November 1, 2006... For many executives, the "R" in "ROI" isn't up to snuff. While more than 75 percent of senior executives say their technology company's spending has had a positive impact in recent years, only 36 percent say they're confident their business is...

Techies.(Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. appointed James Hughes)(Inforte Corp. appointed Glenn Stoops )(Computer Services Inc. appointed Andy Elliott )(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Freddie Mac appointed James Hughes, formerly CIO of National City, as its svp and CIO. * Inforte Corp. appointed Dr. Glenn Stoops to the newly created position of chief analytics officer. * Andy Elliott was named svp of Computer Services, a...

Message Board.
November 1, 2006... "It just doesn't give banks the warm and fuzzy, like having IBM, HP or Sun saying 'we stand behind this-and you'll pay for it.'" Celent's Bart Narter, senior analyst, on banks' wariness to open source. "A lot of it starts with better...

Web Applications: Getting Online Customers To Make the Handshake: Banks and other firms get four million online applications a month for accounts and services. They'd get more if the process was easier.
November 1, 2006... For the 14.2 million monthly online applicants who start filling out Web forms for credit cards or loans, about 10 million never finish up. To a card-issuing firm, having only five of seven potential customers escape stands as a wildly...

Large Banks are Big On Small Business: Community banks tout their local connections, but larger banks enjoy faster turnaround on lending requests.(Joel Pruis)(Interview)
November 1, 2006... Baker Hill's new report on small-business lending indicates that banks with more than $20 billion in assets have focused on improving responsiveness to lending requests, with application turnaround improving by 13 percent on average. That's...

Open Source: Powering ECM On Springs And Struts: Open source application development is progressing for more front-end IT uses as financial institutions advance their frameworks and mindsets.
November 1, 2006... Each hour, an international retail bank routes its faxed and Web-based trade confirmation and transaction orders-workflow comprising 25,000 data factors-through its new enterprise content management system. Another non-U.S. firm, this one a...

Lending: Automated Process Is Key To Compliance: Los Alamos National is among those banks moving away from manual processes to ensure compliance with CRA and HMDA regulations and to better serve customers.(Community Reinvestment Act)(Home Mortgage Disclosure Act)
November 1, 2006... The twin processes of dumping paper from document storage and automating customer transaction histories and demographics aren't just good ways to upsell consumers to a broader relationship. It's also a good way to make sure you're following...

Sales Culture: Hudson Turns Data Into Sales: Deploying enterprise content-management software was a key step in turning every customer interaction into a data trail. And that means improved cross-sales performance.
November 1, 2006... When a company decides that every encounter with a customer can be a sales opportunity, it helps to give the employees the tools of the sales trade to do their jobs. For Hudson Savings Bank, these tools help make an electronic paper trail...

The Innovators.
November 1, 2006... The only source of profit, the only reason to invest in companies in the future is their ability to innovate and their ability to differentiate," Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric, once observed. That thinking is a welcome reminder for...

Business Banking: Online Courier Aids In Deposits: The Southwest's largest privately held bank, 1st National Bank of Arizona, is Web-enabling business deposits. Free hardware, it hopes, will provide a greater boost.
November 1, 2006... Business clients of 1st National Bank of Arizona can now make deposits without leaving their desks, or paying for the hardware. The largest privately held, family-owned bank in the Southwest is deploying Image Deposit, a service that uses a...

Payments: Royal Bank of Scotland Mints a New Service: A new card, called "Mint," will allow customer to view account balances and make payments by text message.
November 1, 2006... Royal Bank of Scotland's retail division announced a new service in its credit card line that the bank and industry analysts alike say could become a major force in the payments space. The card, marketed under the name Mint, will allow...

Facilities: Building 'Green' Saves Banks Green: Using environmentally friendly building materials saves money and builds goodwill. PNC, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo are taking notice of the trend.
November 1, 2006... Bankers are all about the money-and saving money can be just as good as earning it. That's why banks like PNC Financial Services and Bank of America are at the forefront of the green-building construction craze, which proponents claim can save...

Firewalls: Online Protection Without Intrusion: Community Bank deploys a product that's easy on the user.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Community Bank's recently installed name-brand desktop firewall quickly became the helpdesk's nightmare. Problems with the product-which had taken more than six weeks to roll out to 1,200 users-were generating more than 100 help desk calls per...

Mortgage Settlement: Countrywide Makes the Vendor Exchange: The nation's largest home lender signs up for an electronic vendor management system to speed title, closing process.(RealEC Technologies contracts with Countrywide Home Loans Inc.)
November 1, 2006... RealEC Technologies is finally hosting the 800-pound gorilla at its table. One of the mortgage industry's prime vendor-management portals for large lenders has coaxed Countrywide Home Loans, the largest player in the market, to adopt its...

Tough Vendor Competition Portends Lots of M&A.
November 1, 2006... As bank information technology spending continues its heady course, financial services technology (FST) vendors capitalize on opportunities in the market. In the first half of 2005, almost all of the major FST vendors, including Fair Isaac,...