Financial Industry
So if you haven’t heard by now, Target, the big red retailer, has a bit of a fraud problem. Somehow, their payment system was hacked and stole a mere 40M credit and debit account numbers with expiration dates and CSV codes…maybe even PIN numbers. Hmmm. How can this be? Per a Krebs article, “Little is known yet about how the data was compromised. “My best guess is [Target] got hit by hackers who got into their network, and were able to push malicious software out to the point of sale systems,” says Krebs, who spoke to American Banker in a recent exclusive interview. “We probably won’t know for certain for weeks or months.”
Read MoreI recently interviewed our Senior Integration Support Engineer, Boaz Ron, related to how he felt about going into a branch. His thoughts were the following: if I can get a deposit done through my phone, computer or ATM in under 20 seconds, why does a teller take longer? An ATM can dispense cash faster than tellers and there is always some old slow guy holding up the line.
Read MoreThere is a paradox in branch capacity planning right now. Retail wants more revenue, but branch transaction volumes have declined nearly 35%, according to a FMSI 2013 Teller Line Study, due to additional online products and RDC offerings; which mean less walk-in traffic. In response, technologists are trying to innovate the branch experience, while bringing a more personalized and sales-oriented encounter. In some respects, the branch is becoming less relevant, except when the customer “needs” to solve a problem and they want interaction.
Read MoreFinTECH’s annual top 100 companies in financial technology is comprised of a dynamic list of both public and private companies generating tremendous revenues in the financial industry, both in the US and globally. The interesting distribution of these companies illustrates the revenue power of the top companies.
Read MoreA recent article in Banking Strategies, The Strategic Implications of Tellers Selling, dissects the concept of traditional tellers evolving into sales people at the branch for walk-in clients. When presented in an orderly manner, the concept brings a fresh feel to the irony of the bank branch; leverage branch resources to drive revenue and increase transaction processing efficiency while branch volume declines. Tellers selling financial services can provide a great opportunity, but there is the possibility of “heartburn” for customer experience.
Read MoreCheck fraud losses in the US were last benchmarked and estimated at $893M for financial institutions from a 2011 ABA Deposit Account Fraud Survey Report. However, one of the main considerations in overall losses which was not incorporated were retailer losses. No one knows the exact number, but we have spoken to several consultants who estimate it at 10X the losses of banks. This event occurs when a fraudster purchases goods from a retail location with a fraudulent check and then departs with the product/goods. If the bank of first deposit, or paying bank, identify it as fraudulent, many times the retailer loses.
Read MoreA recent Gartner report highlighted “5 Cloud Trends in 2013 and Beyond”. Have you ever heard of how cloud computing aims to create “Webscale” systems, which are large configurations that have this ability to expand and contract as needed? They can be configured quickly, and yet go away quickly too. No longer are “large scale projects” a problem in a cloud hosted environment. A good example in healthcare payments would be a project to convert a large back-log of explanation of benefits forms. In this project, a large virtual cloud could be created with high capacity for a few days…then it goes away.
Read MoreAs Orbotech, Orbograph’s parent company, announces its Q2 2013 earnings report, we thought it might be a good time to point out that pretty much all of the Smartphones on the market go through a quality assurance processing using Orbotech’s latest generation of automated optical inspection and array tester models within the fabrication of mobile devices and large screen televisions. For 30+ years, Orbotech has enabled electronic manufacturers to achieve increased yields and throughput in the production process of electronics using: automated optical inspection (AOI) systems for bare printed circuit boards (PCBs), flat panel displays (FPDs) and automated optical inspection (AOI).
Read MoreAn article today in PYMNTS.com called (From Paper Checks To Electronic Payments: Eight Questions To Ask) illustrates why converting to a new payment methodology is so challenging. Simply put, it’s an “adoption process”. Any new product or idea in the market, particularly in today’s fast moving marketplace for businesses and consumers, must have a methodology for an onboarding process which is: easy to implement, requires minimal investment and limits internal conflict and resource allocation.
Read MoreAccording to an article in BAI Banking Strategies by Applied Predictive Technologies, retail banks will focus on managing the multi-channel impact of mobile banking, downsizing branches and selective investing in branch technology. The changing market dynamics due to the variables of new technologies and adoption has complicated the modeling process for the retail sector. This is an opportunity for operations to support the goals of the retail side of the bank by executing on new technologies in check processing automation. By taking a straight-through-processing orientation across the enterprise, the retail bank can focus on client needs, rather than overcoming operational limitations of systems. See how the five top trends can be optimized below with Next Generation Recognition (NGR) technology.
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