TRADE SHOW / ASSOCIATION UPDATE

BAFT announced theme for its 11th annual International Trade and Finance conference; American Bankers Association debuts Web banking insurance package for community banks; Call center professional conference will be held in Chicago at the end of July.

New trends in risk management and operation in today's trade environment will be the theme of the 11th annual conference on International Trade and Finance, which will be held at Hotel Intercontinental in Chicago from October 25-26.

The event, which is run by the Bankers Association for Finance and Trade (BAFT) and sponsored by Hewlett Packard, TradeCard and UPS, is the largest conference in the United States dedicated to trade practitioner issues. Topics to be covered include credit scoring, country and credit risk, e-finance venture funds, CRM, systems integration, back office operations and processing models.

The conference is expected to attract over 300 senior managers from banks, service providers, consultants, technology firms, rating agencies, and federal and state governments.

For more information, contact BAFT at www.baft.org.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The American Bankers Association (ABA) has launched the Internet Banking Protection Package (IBPP), an insurance program specifically designed to meet the needs of community banks engaged in Internet banking.

The package, designed to fill the gaps in a bank's traditional banking insurance policies, consists of an Internet banking liability policy and an enhanced version of their existing financial institutional bond. The IBPP also offers additional coverage for business interruption, public relations expense and cyber/network extortion.

"After extensive research, it became apparent that the insurance industry hadn't kept pace with technology, and traditional policies didn't adequately cover losses from Internet banking," said Gina Juhnke, product manager for Progressive, which underwrites the program. "The e-insurance policies out there today are designed for e-commerce businesses, which is why we created out product--to address the specific needs of financial institutions."

For more information on this product, contact the ABA at www.aba.com.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The 13th annual ICCM show, one of the largest events for call center professionals, will be held at McCormick Place in Chicago from July 30 to August 2.

The event will feature a conference with over 75 sessions, an application showcase theatre and over 200 exhibitors displaying the latest technology and applications for call centers and CRM. The event will also feature the Incoming Calls Management Institute, a program that addresses today's most perplexing customer contact issues.

For more information, contact ICCM at www.iccm.com