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Management Strategies

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Vicki Gerson
Vicki Gerson
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May I See Your I.D., Please?

Labe Bank adds photo I.D. scanning capabilities to its teller-level fraud prevention.

As Chicago-based Labe Bank expanded its customer base, tellers no longer knew all their customers by sight. As a result, says Rick Uppling, the bank's assistant vice president, information systems, Labe decided to upgrade its teller-level fraud-detection technology -- which consisted of video surveillance and signature-scanning software from SQN Banking Systems (Rancocas, N.J.) -- to include photo I.D. scanning capabilities.

Uppling started researching vendors in the first quarter of 2006, narrowing down the field to five providers, which he declines to name, before finally selecting SQN. "I leaned toward SQN from the beginning because of its superb relationship with the bank [and] its excellent customer support," he explains. "In addition, I didn't think it would be wise to entrust something this important to ... a new company." Uppling adds that price also was a consideration.

Standing Guard

Labe signed a contract with SQN in the second quarter of 2006 for the vendor's new Sentry: Signature signature and I.D. scanning system, and purchased three Scanshell (Los Angeles) 800n driver's license scanners. No other new hardware was needed for the implementation.

Though Sentry: Signature enables new-account representatives to scan customers' signatures and driver's licenses into the system's databases, currently, representatives simply make high-quality photocopies of customers' I.D.s, according to Uppling. At the end of each day, a teller supervisor at each branch scans the copies into the system. The information then can be accessed through each teller's PC.

To implement the software, Uppling relates, the Sentry system needed to be linked to Labe's Metavante (Milwaukee) core transaction system. According to Uppling, SQN supplied the necessary code. "The code that we needed was DLL [Dynamic Link Library Files and Configuration files]," he explains. "These files are embedded in the software that sits on the server and workstation. It doesn't take much processing space or disc space." An SQN technician took two days to install the new Sentry software on a Compaq server from Hewlett-Packard (Palo Alto, Calif.) at the end of June 2006.

Once the software was installed, it took less than a half hour to train the trainer, who trained other technicians, Uppling says, adding that tellers did not require training because the system changes were minor from a user's perspective. A software interface was installed on tellers' Microsoft (Redmond, Wash.) Windows XP operating system, and the SQN application writes itself into the Metavante software, he describes. All tellers need to do to see account holders' driver's licenses on their PCs is enter the customers' account numbers.

Uppling cites this ease of use as a major benefit of the solution, noting that images are crisp and clear, and that the system is fast. Additionally, technical support for the system -- which cost less than 1 percent of his IT budget, according to Uppling -- is strong.

Uppling points out that Labe Bank added five branches when it acquired BB&T Bancshares Corp., the parent of Bloomingdale Bank and Trust, in December 2006. (As a result, the bank doubled its assets, to $1.1 billion.) In January 2007, Uppling continues, Labe plans to purchase more scanners, placing three at each of its eight branch locations. This will allow every desktop in the new-accounts department to make copies of licenses immediately without intervention from teller supervisors. * --Vicki Gerson

Fraud Prevention

** Institution: Labe Bank (Chicago).

** Assets: $1.1 billion.

** Business Challenge: Enhance fraud detection at the teller level to include driver's license scanning.

** Solution: SQN Banking Systems' (Rancocas, N.J.) Sentry: Signature signature and I.D. scanning system and Scanshell (Los Angeles) 800n driver's license scanners.

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