Bank Technology News articles from September 2003

Bank Technology News archives from September 2003

MARKETING INNOVATION: FIS Brushes Off Its Passport: Overseas plans started with Alltel acquisition.(Fidelity Information Services )
September 1, 2003... Fidelity Information Services is fulfilling goals set during its earlier incarnation as Alltel Information Services by speeding up its marketing and sales efforts overseas. FIS is now modifying its products in check processing, accounting,...

MORTGAGE: Lenders Waiting For a Breather.
September 1, 2003... Refi Lull May Be A Chance to Upgrade salem five cents bank is one of the lucky ones-the beneficiary of both great timing and a perpetual bent on finding innovative uses for technology. It's choice to add to its mortgage technology platform when...

E-BOND TRADING: Players Keep Pace As Volumes Surge: Consolidation expected to narrow field.
September 1, 2003... Three years of non-stop growth among e-bond traders has pushed the top players to record volumes, yet there's still so much room to grow in this wildly evolving industry. Competition remains fierce in both the dealer-to dealer and the...

Editor's Note.(Correction Notice)
September 1, 2003... In "Ten Companies to Watch" (August 2003), BTN incorrectly spelled FinancialCircuit, which is one word not two. The company, whose software is patent-pending, is privately held and not publicly traded, as indicated in a stat box. Also in that...

Firing Line: Despite uncertain economic times, innovation is progressing. The difference from previous years is in precisely where innovation occurs within banks.(Industry Overview)
September 1, 2003... Innovators, Ingenuity And the Best of Both Worlds each year, cios and their it teams are faced with the daunting challenge of being both innovative and cost conscious. Add tight ROI expectations to the mix and it's a tall order for any bank...

....NewsMakers....NewsMakers....NewsMakers....NewsMakers....
September 1, 2003... Paycheck-Cashing ATMs FleetBoston Financial Corp. hopes to cash in on the lucrative check-cashing business. In the first pilot of its kind in the nation, the firm is launching six check-cashing machines to process payroll checks for...

Fidelity Tunes in New Channels.(purchases WebTone Technologies)
September 1, 2003... Fidelity National's acquisitive tack of late has had some breadth to it, as its purchase of WebTone Technologies puts it in a position enjoyed by few other vendors. Whether that breadth is too wide remains to be seen. The WebTone deal...

For Oklahoma Banks, the Password is 'Biometrics'.(using DigitalPersona's UrUPro)
September 1, 2003... A consortium of oklahoma banks has come up with a biometrics solution to a longstanding problem that still haunts many banks and their employees: keeping track of passwords to log onto computers and to perform other critical banking functions...

BofA and Wells Fargo Agree that Sharing is Caring.(consumer information)
September 1, 2003... The freak show that's the california governor's race has been attracting lots of attention recently, but some comparatively routine political wrangling in the Golden State is changing the way financial firms can cross market, and is causing...

PNC Brings ATM Service to Mutual Fund Customers.(PNC Financial Service Group)
September 1, 2003... Because ATMs have become such an intrinsic part of everyday life, it comes as no surprise that the service has been extended to brokerage customers. Mutual fund holders at participating firms can now make check deposits into their accounts...

Glasgow, Edinburgh Welcome Invasion of U.S. Firms.
September 1, 2003... U.S. financial services firms are stomping into Edinburgh and Glasgow faster than King Edward's English troops stormed the region 700 years ago. But no modern ancestor of William Wallace is lifting a sword to halt this invasion: The Americans...

New Products: Attus's WatchDog Bites Back.(Attus Technologies' WatchDOG Web, Chordiant's new releases and SunGard Securities Processing InTrader 9.0)
September 1, 2003... Attus technologies, a provider of financial services software for regulatory compliance, homeland security, and fraud prevention, has launched WatchDOG Web, the first compliance software solution to run on Microsoft's .NET Web services...

ODDS & ENDS.
September 1, 2003... KBC, one of Europe's largest bank insurance groups, has signed a multi-year agreement to use FAME's ReferencePoint, a historical and reference data-management product of FAME Information Services.... CUSO Financial Services, a...

Bank Spending On IT to Grow 3.3% by 2007.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Report Highlights: In 2003, more than 81 percent of spending will be on maintenance. In 2004, U.S. banks will invest $22.8 billion in consumer bank IT. IT staffing will remain flat through 2004, but banks will spend more on...

Father of Terrorism E-Market is Delisted.(John Poindexter, head of Office of Information Awareness, resigns)
September 1, 2003... When word slipped out of the Pentagon that an on-line futures market aimed at ferreting out terrorist attacks and Middle East mayhem was in the works, reactions from both sides of the aisle ranged from dumbfounded outrage to outright horror....

TECHIES.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Denis J. O'Leary has been elected to the Board of Directors of Network Associates, a provider of intrusion-detection software in Santa Clara, CA. O'Leary retired from JPMorgan Chase this year after a 25-year career with the firm, where he held...

Message Board.
September 1, 2003... "We've all had a week with no lights and trying to fix computer viruses." Lawrence Byrd, convergence strategist, Avaya on the need for communications infrastructures to have adequate backup in the case of a blackout or other emergency. ...

By the Numbers.(technology spending forecast from Goldman Sachs)
September 1, 2003... IT spending will rebound, according to Goldman Sachs's quarterly survey, which predicts technology spending will stabilize for the rest of 2003, and rebound in early 2004. The panel, queried in June, is made up of 100 IT managers with...

These are Times of Restrained Exuberance.(Jacqueline Woods, vp of pricing and licensing for Oracle)(Interview)
September 1, 2003... The multi-whammy of recession, war and terrorism may be ebbing, depending on whom you ask. But what's emerging is a new economy, one where recessionary measures and geopolitical uncertainty is a heavy burden in good times and bad for the...

ESL FCU Speeds Web-Based Mortgage Processing: By Lee Conrad.(uses Fiserv Lending Solutions' easyLender and Mortgagebot's PowerSite)
September 1, 2003... In the next step of the evolving one-stop shop, ESL Federal Credit Union has launched a strategy that combines lending and mortgage technology from two vendors and fully integrates them into its own Web site. The credit union uses...

Electronic Billing: Yodlee Joins E-Billing Game.
September 1, 2003... Firm goes head-to-head with CheckFree and Metavante. But will consumer adoption follow? yodlee, the account-aggregation company, has thrown its gloves into the ring of the highly competitive electronic bill payment and presentment market. ...

Bank One Joins Parade Of Cheaper Web Billing: The move is part of a larger effort to focus on checking.
September 1, 2003... Bank one corp. has joined the ranks of financial institutions that have opted to waive, lower or put off charges for on-line bill payment ffective August 1, the company dropped its $4.95 monthly fee, a decision that benefits 1.9 million on-line...

Knowledge is Power: New tax laws and a wave of automation could make 529 plans the college savings option of choice. It would help if more people knew what they were.
September 1, 2003... Banc of america capital management hopes it's riding a groundswell in touting tax-friendly 529s-college savings plans that are getting more flexible for investors by the day. The problem: Most Americans aren't even aware these investment...

Blackout Snooze: After three years of building the business continuity bridge, firms were ready when the lights went out.
September 1, 2003... Three times, as they say, is the charm. Financial services firms suffered few business-continuity glitches during North America's largest blackout in history on August 14, thanks to the previously-faced threats of Y2K complications and the...

Cells and E-mails Down, Blackberrys Up.
September 1, 2003... Cell phones might've been down, e-mail wasn't happening and many land-line phones didn't work. But the lucky owners of BlackBerrys, those ubiquitous hand-held, do-it-all wireless computers, were always in touch with colleagues during the August...

Taming the Dragon: Internet banking promises to be big, big, big in China. Six foreign banks have snagged licenses, hoping to elbow their way in ow get out of the way.
September 1, 2003... Internet banking-particularly cell-phone banking-may be the final frontier in China, whose 232,000-branch network is the largest in the world. As the Chinese government continues to severely restrict foreign banks from opening branches in...

On-line Construction Reporting: Project Info At a Glance.(ProgressView online service)
September 1, 2003... One of the toughest things for construction lenders to know is when it's the right time to release funds to start a new phase of a project ew technology hitting the market is giving banks of all sizes the chance to get an electronic look at...

Northern Trust Risk Tool Tracks Impact of Volatility.(Indiana Teachers Retirement System)
September 1, 2003... Institutional portfolio manager Bob Newland sounds like a football coach. He never actually said that "the best offense is a good defense," but he might as well have, given his enthusiasm for a new risk-analysis tool from Northern Trust ewland...

Debt Resolve is Bringing The Repo Man to the Web: Firm touts a kinder, gentler way to collect overdue debts.(Debt Resolve)
September 1, 2003... Combine ebay and repo man and what do you get? Debt Resolve. Well, not quite, but the idea behind Debt Resolve, a start-up venture based in White Plains, NY, is to soften the tough, sometimes harassing collection tactics often employed by...

Telephony: Merrill's Old New Phones.(Merrill Lynch)
September 1, 2003... Like any company that does business around the world, staying connected is like oxygen to Merrill Lynch. So making sure its people can communicate no matter what the circumstances is absolutely critical. To guarantee uninterrupted connectivity,...

SEI Hits Technology Home Run for Stein Roe.
September 1, 2003... Like a lot of financial firms, Stein Roe Investment Counsel recently had to decide whether its line of business included managing a technology network-a tough decision in a time when major pressure is being placed on both human staff and the...

UK, Ireland Customers To Try PIN-Ready Cards: National Australia Bank plans card with security in mind.
September 1, 2003... National australia bank group, riding a technology wave that's building half a world away in Europe, plans to introduce 2.5 million smart cards in the UK and Ireland over the next four years, just in time to catch changes in how European...

Building a Worthy Case For Data Protection: The NPV assessment looks at future value of cash flow.(Net Present Value)
September 1, 2003... In our times, data drives competitive advantage and market gain. The risk-return profile of modern companies depends heavily on the safety and accessibility of data. Yet as enterprise budgets are shrinking and companies are leery of any...

Six Strategies to Boost Bank Productivity Gains: The need for efficiencies have never been greater.
September 1, 2003... In a business world fraught with layoffs, budget and staff cuts, acquisitions and mergers, uncertainty abounds. Bank operations managers are asking themselves: "What if these cuts hit my department? How can I do more with less?" The need for...

An Inside Look at Exactly Where IT Money is Going.(information technology)
September 1, 2003... Cios in american banks are look- ing to improve compliance, improve risk management, reduce costs and increase employee efficiency. However, Canadian banks seek to cut costs while increasing customer loyalty, which are both challenging as...

Pinpoint Marketing is Part of the Future of CRM.
September 1, 2003... Not long ago, the very idea of letting credit card customers choose payment dates, set personal PINs or pick their APRs was anathema to a bank's culture and technology. Thankfully, times have changed. During the 1990s, card issuers...

Five Lessons On Renewing The Branch.
September 1, 2003... During the Internet heyday of the late '90s, many assumed that people would flock to the Internet for banking services and that branch banking would quietly fade away. But, increasingly, the retail banking industry is realizing that assumption...