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May 11, 2010
Accelerating Wall Street 2010
October 3-6, 2010
Bank Systems & Technology Executive Summit 2010
February 17, 2010
Building a Collaborative Banking Environment
| Bank Systems & Technology: The Blog |  |
Featuring commentary from the editors of Bank Systems & Technology, plus Art Gillis!
Does the Goldman/AIG Mess Prove Volcker's Right?
February 08, 2010 @ 09:31 AM | By Penny Crosman
Kudos to Gretchen Morgenson and Louise Story of the New York Times for their article in yesterday's paper casting light on one aspect of Goldman Sachs' role in the financial crisis.
continued...Comments(1)
Honor Roll: This Week's Top Banking Blogs (Jan. 31-Feb. 6)
February 05, 2010 @ 11:54 AM | By Nathan Conz
Our favorite banking technology-related blog posts from around the Web (January 31-February 6, 2010):
continued...Comment on this blog entry
TGIF: iPad Commercial Parodies
February 05, 2010 @ 10:17 AM | By Penny Crosman
Apple's launch of its iPad has inspired humorous videos all over the internet. We've flipped through several, skipped most of the ones comparing it to feminine products (and the Hitler one, since someone complained the last time we posted Hitler humor), and present to you what we think are the funniest iPad parodies out there this morning.
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NY AG Files Lawsuit Against Bank of America
February 04, 2010 @ 01:12 PM | By Nathan Conz
The New York Attorney general's office announced late this morning that it has filed civil charges against Bank of America, relating to the Charlotte, N.C.-based financial institution's acquisition of Merrill Lynch. The NY AG says that the bank, former CEO Ken Lewis and former CFO Joseph L. Price, misled investors when acquiring the investment firm in late 2008.
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Banks' Struggle to Achieve Document Security
February 02, 2010 @ 05:18 PM | By
By Adi Ruppin, Confidela
Keeping electronic documents secure is a challenge in any industry, but banks have extra considerations. Checks, loan applications and monthly statements need to be accessible online. The same applies to sensitive internal bank documents that need to be shared among employees, branches, auditors and others. And industry regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley require banks to maintain an audit trail of all these documents. There are three conditions in many banks that make document security particularly hard: phishing attacks, remote workers and customer communications.
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Banks Get Lots of Hidden Value From A Core Conversion
February 01, 2010 @ 06:05 PM | By Art Gillis
This next statement may sound like professional suicide, but I have made it numerous times without regret. "I don't know how to run a bank. I rely on my clients for that."
Comment on this blog entry
Volcker Explains His Bank Reform Rules
February 01, 2010 @ 10:29 AM | By Penny Crosman
Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve and chairman of the president’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, and the person credited with President Obama's recent "Volcker Rule" preventing banks from proprietary trading and investing in hedge funds and private equity, detailed his thoughts on bank reform on the New York Times' Op-Ed page yesterday.
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Deutsche Bank CEO Calls for Global Banking Rules at Davos
January 29, 2010 @ 09:11 AM | By Penny Crosman
Josef Ackerman, CEO of Deutsche Bank, told CNBC's Maria Bartiromo his views on recent bank regulation proposals at the World Economic Forum in Davos yesterday. "We're in a global market, we need global rules," Ackerman said, suggesting that President Obama's recent proposal to separate banks from the capital markets might not work if only one country adopts it. Ackerman supports the Basel II capital allocation requirements, but feels the Volcker rule could reduce liquidity and efficiency in the global markets.
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TGIF: Daily Show on the Obama vs. Bankers Showdown
January 29, 2010 @ 06:44 AM | By Penny Crosman
Obama wants to shrink banks, but bankers can take dividends hostage, Jon Stewart points out.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Obama Takes On Bankers | ||||
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Honor Roll: This Week's Top Banking Blogs (Jan. 24-30)
January 29, 2010 @ 12:34 AM | By Nathan Conz
Our favorite banking technology-related blog posts from around the Web (January 24-30, 2010):
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Heartland Shares Lessons Learned from Its Data Breach
January 28, 2010 @ 08:42 AM | By Penny Crosman
Heartland Payment Systems has gone from data breach victim to card data security expert. Although the card payment processor suffered a data breach in late 2008, lost 50 percent of its market cap shortly thereafter, and spent more than $32 million in legal fees, forensic costs, reserves for potential card brand fines and other related settlement costs, it has since designed and implemented an end-to-end encryption system that puts it ahead of many of its peers in terms of data security. Details about the breach and Heartland's data security efforts since then are described in a paper the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia released this week on lessons learned from the Heartland data breach. (At Bank Systems & Technology's Executive Summit last year, Kris Herrin, CTO of Heartland Payment Systems, did a video interview about his company's security efforts that can be viewed here.)
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CRM in Banking 10 Years Later: Was It a Crusade or a Parade?
January 27, 2010 @ 05:17 PM | By Bill Bradway
One of the benefits of tenure as an independent BankTech analyst is the opportunity to look back and use some 20/20 hindsight to evaluate earlier analysis and forecasts.
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IWeek: Apple Tablet Should Be Well-Received By Businesses
January 27, 2010 @ 09:29 AM | By Penny Crosman
Apple's new Kindle-like tablet should be suitable for executives such as bankers, according to Fritz Nelson, Editorial Director for InformationWeek (a sibling publication to Bank Systems & Technology).
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Beware of Unintended Consequences to the Volcker Rule
January 26, 2010 @ 05:44 PM | By Penny Crosman
Although President Obama's "Volcker Rule" — his proposal that banks forego proprietary trading, investment or ownership in hedge funds and private equity firms and not be allowed to become too big to fail — could take three to five years to move through Congress and become implemented, if some version of it does get passed, it could have a profound impact on banks, said Matt Cohn, partner and leader of Capco's banking group, in an interview this week.
Comment on this blog entry
Creative Banks Could Harness Location-Aware Twitter
January 26, 2010 @ 01:02 PM | By Penny Crosman
Now that Twitter has unveiled TwitterLocal — an Adobe Air application through which one can perform location-aware Twitter searches (for instance, you could follow anyone tweeting in the Los Angeles area, provided they have opted in to allow their location to be known) — it could open social media possibilities for retail banks. Perhaps a bank could see who was searching for ATMs in a particular neighborhood and use that data to install a new machine there. Or upon seeing that hundreds of Twitterers have recently purchased homes in an area, a bank might schedule a seminar on home equity loans. The opportunities seem endless.
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Ancillary Applications May Now Be Leading The Way In Bank IT
January 25, 2010 @ 04:57 PM | By Art Gillis
I don't believe it's news anymore when I tell you core system sales have tapered off in the past ten years. But here's proof. In the year 2000, 7.3% of the FI population acquired a new core system. In 2009, the rate was approximately 2%. Going forward, it may stay at 2% or it may continue to decline, but it won't increase.
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Goldman, Morgan Stanley May Drop Bank Status, NYT Reports
January 25, 2010 @ 10:26 AM | By Penny Crosman
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, which became bank holding companies in September 2008 to gain government protection and access to the Fed's discount window, may now shed their bank status if the 'Volcker Rule' preventing banks from proprietary trading goes through, according to an article in Saturday's New York Times.
Comments(1)
Three Ways to Deter Cyber Crime
January 25, 2010 @ 08:00 AM | By
By Joe Spatarella, Online Banking Solutions
Ironically, as businesses move from risky paper check payments to a safer means of electronic B2B payments, the online banking systems through which payments are originated have become an attractive fraud target. Although businesses are using payment fraud control devices such as ACH Positive Pay and ACH Debit Filter, they only mitigate fraud after it occurs. There are at least five fresh reasons to step up the security investment.
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Honor Roll: This Week's Top Banking Blogs (Jan. 17-23)
January 22, 2010 @ 12:10 PM | By Nathan Conz
Our favorite banking technology-related blog posts from around the Web (January 17-23, 2010):
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Time for A Holistic Fraud Prevention Effort
January 22, 2010 @ 10:35 AM | By
By Mike Ressel, vice president of business development, Fiserv
Despite continuing effort and investment by banks to mitigate financial crime risk, fraud is evidently still a growing problem.
So what’s going wrong?
Comment on this blog entry
Three Approaches to Combatting Enterprise Fraud
January 22, 2010 @ 09:07 AM | By
By David Nussenbaum, vice president, ACI Worldwide
Fraud is on the rise and it’s expected to accelerate in the wake of the global financial crisis, with not just cards but other bank products and channels being targets for criminals. Urban gangs like the Crips and the Bloods have been known to collect more than 10,000 credit card numbers a night. Right now, a gang member is likely approaching a waiter as he starts his shift. The crook simply offers the waiter a card skimmer, which is smaller than a deck of cards, and he tells him that all he has to do is swipe cards through the skimmer during his shift, and in return he’ll get paid $25 per swipe. Unfortunately people need money for gas and rent, especially in this economy, so they tell themselves they aren’t doing any harm and they go ahead and swipe the cards of unsuspecting diners.
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TGIF: Hitler Finds Out Scott Brown Won Senate Seat; 1984 Apple Commercial
January 22, 2010 @ 07:49 AM | By Penny Crosman
The Fuhrer holds forth on the Massachusetts election and other current events.
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It's Time to Unite Money Laundering and Fraud Prevention Efforts
January 21, 2010 @ 02:03 PM | By
By Karen Van Ness, Oracle Financial Services Software
In the last year, the financial services industry received a rousing reminder of the profound damage that increasingly complex financial schemes and fraud can inflict on their reputation and bottom line. Analysts estimate that financial crime costs industry organizations approximately $20 billion in losses, annually. At the same time, banks are grappling with expanding anti-money laundering (AML), fraud prevention and risk management regulatory requirements, and spiraling compliance costs associated with those initiatives. In this environment, many organizations are reevaluating their compliance and fraud prevention programs and increasingly pursuing an integrated approach to achieve the operational and cost efficiencies critical to maintaining profitability.
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Startup BlackBox Offers Mortgage Data That Takes Modifications Into Account
January 21, 2010 @ 09:39 AM | By Penny Crosman
In this editor's humble opinion, one primary cause of the subprime/financial crisis was the fact that banks, capital markets firms, hedge funds, insurance companies and pension plans bought billions of dollars worth of collateralized debt obligations and engaged in credit default swaps around CDOs without knowing much about the underlying securities that were bundled into those products. They trusted the issuer, they believed the AAA ratings from Moody's and Standard & Poors, they saw their peers investing in CDOs and making a fortune, or they simply looked at the high promised returns (where else could they get a guaranteed 12% return?) and salivated. But where the underlying securities (or a portion of them) were subprime mortgages, an analysis of those loans, including the credit history and financial condition of the borrowers, could have saved some of these investors from losing big on these toxic assets.
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How to Protect Online Business Banking
January 20, 2010 @ 08:58 AM | By
By Craig Priess, Guardian Analytics
Online business banking is under attack.
While much ink has been spilled detailing consumer banking fraud and its victims, business accounts are no less susceptible to cybercrime – and in many ways are more at risk. Small business banking is particularly vulnerable, especially in the current economic climate. Why? One reason is that Regulation E of the Federal Electronic Funds Transfer Act requires banks to reimburse consumer victims within ten days of a reported fraud, but it does not protect businesses in a similar fashion. Another is the fact that these companies are often too small to have large information technology staffs on duty around the clock. Not to mention the fact that some small businesses have started to sue their bankers if not made whole to their satisfaction – an alarming but not unexpected outcome.
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The Case for Data Mapping
January 19, 2010 @ 11:41 AM | By Nathan Conz
A, um, wise man once said, "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don't know."
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If Testing 75 Brands of Bank Core Systems Sounds Intimidating, Relax, I'll Show You How To Do It The Right Way
January 19, 2010 @ 10:30 AM | By Art Gillis
Over the years, I have developed many good tools that I use to assist banks in the selection of a new core system. The reasons I have accumulated 36 tools containing 814 criteria are two-fold. The first is I can't stand "reinventing the wheel." The second is I don't trust myself to remember everything I did during previous projects. As a result, five months after I begin an assignment, 35 bank employees and I agree on the recommended solution. One year after the go-live date, even the bank examiners agree on the bank's chosen system.
Comments(2)
What Banks Need to Do to Combat Card Fraud
January 15, 2010 @ 09:49 PM | By Penny Crosman
The Aite Group reported last week that card fraud costs the U.S. card payments industry $8.6 billion per year. Although this is just 0.4% of the $2.1 trillion in U.S. card volume per year, the analyst group noted it's still a number card providers would like to reduce. There are measures banks and others in the card processing chain can take to deter card fraud experts from their dastardly work; however, many of them are costly and hard to execute.
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Microsoft: Hackers Used IE Vulnerability in Google Hack
January 15, 2010 @ 02:08 PM | By Nathan Conz
More details are beginning to emerge as the technology community further investigates hacks that originated in China that targeted Google and other corporations. Yesterday afternoon, Microsoft announced that a vulnerability in Internet Explorer was exploited as part of the hacks.
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Honor Roll: This Week's Top Banking Blogs (Jan. 10-16)
January 15, 2010 @ 11:13 AM | By Nathan Conz
Our favorite banking technology-related blog posts from around the Web (January 10-16, 2010):
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Banks Send Aid to Haiti
January 15, 2010 @ 10:19 AM | By Penny Crosman
Say what you will about banks' role in the financial crisis and recession, one good quality of the U.S. banking industry is that it's usually the first to respond to catastrophe with money and aid.
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TGIF: Unusual Bank Robberies; Mac Vs. PC Battle
January 15, 2010 @ 09:18 AM | By Penny Crosman
This week in weird/funny (it all depends on your viewpoint) videos about finance and technology, a kangaroo holds up a bank; sketch comedy show Little Britain demonstrates how Americans rob banks, an epic battle between Mac and PC users.
Skippy and the Bank Robbery
Australian celebrity kangaroo Skippy appears to have a dark side.
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White House Shares A Few Details of New Bank Fee
January 14, 2010 @ 01:42 PM | By Penny Crosman
In a fact sheet, the Obama Administration has outlined a few details about the Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee the President is submitting to Congress in his next budget. If the budget passes, the fee will be levied on financial institutions with more than $50 billion in assets, it will take effect June 30 of this year and it will last at least 10 years, or until the TARP is repaid in full. The government hopes to raise up to $117 billion.
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Mobile Banking and Payments Feed Customer Experience Lab
January 14, 2010 @ 08:00 AM | By
By Bill Bradway, Bradway Research LLC
The recurring headlines touting mobile banking and more recently, mobile payments, reinforce my opinion that technology-based innovation in financial services is often ahead of the business-based needs the technology solutions address. Mobile banking over the past 10 years has been a poster child for this phenomenon. No doubt the interest in mobile banking today by bankers is rising and far stronger than 10 years ago and several leading institutions have achieved a meaningful retail customer adoption of their mobile banking offer, led by Bank of America in the U.S. But that misses the point of this column. Last month I noted, “As the banking industry begins its recovery from the Great Recession, eyes and minds are shifting their focus back to identifying the most promising bank tech innovations for the next few years.” Are mobile banking and payments among the most promising innovations, capable of disrupting the retail banking market? Or, will they drive more bankers crazy, in both business and IT, chasing ever elusive expectations?
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IWeek: IBM to Reorganize Software Group
January 13, 2010 @ 03:18 PM | By Nathan Conz
Our colleagues over at InformationWeek ran an exclusive story yesterday afternoon, reporting that Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM intends to reorganize its software group.
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Google Reconsiders China Strategy After Hack
January 13, 2010 @ 03:15 PM | By Nathan Conz
Google is rethinking its involvement in the Chinese market, after uncovering a serious hacking attempt against the company and many others that originated in China.
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Top Bankers Tell Financial Crisis Commission They're Not to Blame
January 13, 2010 @ 11:14 AM | By Penny Crosman
This morning, the leaders of four large banks — Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs; Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase; John Mack, chairman of Morgan Stanley; and Bank of America's new CEO Brian Moynihan — are testifying before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, a group that will spend this year investigating what caused the financial crisis of 2007-2009 and produce a report in December.
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The Innovation Factor: Are Banks Ready to Innovate?
January 13, 2010 @ 08:08 AM | By
By Patrick J. Moore
As promising signs of economic recovery emerge and businesses shed their bunker mentality, it is time to look ahead. A key question for the banking industry is, how will it prepare for the future? Are we ready to embrace innovation, take risks, and reach beyond our comfort zone? Or will we continue business as usual and run the risk of going the way of the dinosaur?
Comments(3)
It May Be Three Years Before Bank IT Returns To Its Typical High Performance
January 11, 2010 @ 05:49 PM | By Art Gillis
I see a glimmer of hope in the banking industry; just enough to expect that routine matters such as keeping the IT factory up to date with new apps, ongoing reliability, strong security, responsive customer service, real-time speed, risk management tools that protect bank assets, databases to provide focused new business opportunities, connections for EVERY customer relationship, and the all-important intel function that inquisitive minds will require more of — my humble definition of a well-run bank IT shop — is very achievable if a bank has the power to spend capital.
Comment on this blog entry
Once Again, Cuomo Demands Large Banks' Bonus Info
January 11, 2010 @ 03:30 PM | By Penny Crosman
As the media speculate about how large banks (especially TARP beneficiaries) will compensate their top executives this year, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has sent out a letter to eight TARP banks — Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, State Street and Wells Fargo — demanding information not only about how big their employee bonuses will be this year, but how their total compensation plans will be structured.
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Charles Barkley Opens A Bank (On Saturday Night Live)
January 11, 2010 @ 11:07 AM | By Penny Crosman
As the first host of Saturday Night Live in 2010, one thing retired basketball player Charles Barkley did was announce the opening of his new bank, Barkley's Bank. "Give me your money, and I'll either double it or lose it all," he said.
Comment on this blog entryHonor Roll: This Week's Top Banking Blogs (Jan. 3-9)
January 08, 2010 @ 11:57 AM | By Nathan Conz
Our favorite banking technology-related blog posts from around the Web (January 3-9, 2010):
continued...Comment on this blog entry
TGIF: SNL's Seth Meyers Says "Thanks, Technology!" at CES
January 08, 2010 @ 10:21 AM | By Penny Crosman
Weekend Update anchor Seth Meyers explored some of the ways technology makes our lives better, just before Steve Ballmer's keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show this week.
Comment on this blog entryTwitter Buzz Overwhelmingly Positive for Google's New Phone
January 07, 2010 @ 10:22 AM | By Penny Crosman
To gauge the popularity of the Nexus One smart phone Google announced on Tuesday, Attensity has applied its sentiment analysis technology to the Twitterverse. The software company ran 15,000 Tweets that mentioned the device through its Voice of the Customer analysis software, which detects and aggregates positive and negative verbiage to draw conclusions about what a group of people feel about a subject.
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If You Invested in Four Bank Tech Companies in 2009, You Would Have Had a Great Year
January 05, 2010 @ 09:33 AM | By Art Gillis
Disclaimer: I do not give investment advice, nor do I own any stocks in the 22 public companies in “Automation in Banking-2010” (AiB-10).
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Sandy Weill: Crybaby or Unappreciated Visionary?
January 04, 2010 @ 12:03 PM | By Kathy Burger
Oh Sandy … get over yourself. That was my initial reaction after reading the article about former Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill that appeared in Sunday’s New York Times business section.
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Honor Roll: This Week's Top Bank Blogs (Dec. 13-19)
December 18, 2009 @ 10:22 AM | By Nathan Conz
Our favorite banking technology-related blog posts from around the Web (December 13-19, 2009):
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FTC Sues Intel for Stifling Competition
December 17, 2009 @ 11:58 AM | By Nathan Conz
In a new lawsuit filed on Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is alleging that Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker Intel has stifled competition in the microprocessor market.
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Bank Tech Budgets: Making Sense of Up, Down or Sideways
December 17, 2009 @ 10:55 AM | By
By Bill Bradway, Founder and Managing Director, Bradway Research
The rock-and-roll developments of 2009 have achieved historic significance in many ways.
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Santa’s Gift To Bankers—The Merit Score
December 15, 2009 @ 08:12 AM | By Art Gillis
The North Pole--I know how much you all pay attention to the quintessential Credit Score in evaluating the credit worthiness of borrowers. Since it hasn’t worked to prevent all sorts of lending disasters, I’m offering you something else in your attempts to set the banking business on its right course. I call it the Merit Score. It’s similar to what I use to keep track of who’s naughty or nice.
Comments(1)
Citigroup Agrees to TARP Repayment
December 14, 2009 @ 11:43 AM | By Nathan Conz
Having worked out whatever differences might have existed between it and the federal government, Citigroup announced this morning that it has reached an agreement to repay its $20 billion TARP bailout.
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Honor Roll: This Week's Top Bank Blogs (Dec. 6-12)
December 11, 2009 @ 12:31 PM | By Nathan Conz
Our favorite banking technology-related blog posts from around the Web (December 6-12, 2009):
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British Bank Bonus Tax: Boffo or Bozo?
December 10, 2009 @ 10:34 AM | By Kathy Burger
The one indisputable business reality of 2009 is that, from a political standpoint, you can’t go wrong dumping on the banking industry.
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