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TECHNOLOGY TOOLS
Banks are always in the market for tools that can help them compete and to run their operations more efficiently and more securely. Here are several recently announced products designed for just that purpose.
Fraud Protect/Cash Management
The American Bankers Association has put its seal of approval on several technology solutions designed to help banks fight exposure to fraudulent deposit and check activities as well as reduce cash inventories and reserve requirements.
The association has endorsed products produced by Carreker Corp. They include:
- A PC-run software package that includes tools that detect deposit and checking account fraud. One tool analyzes and compares check writing and deposit patterns with account history following rules set by the bank. The system pinpoints suspicious activity and allows the bank to prevent items from being paid and to place account holds to stop possible losses. Another tool allows banks to detect potentially fraudulent deposit transactions using bank-set rules and other parameters when comparing information coming in with account holders' established deposit history.
- A software package that determines optimal amounts of cash that should be shipped to bank offices and automated teller machines. It determines those amounts using advanced, demand-based inventory management and forecasting technology.
- A reserve management product that allows financial institutions to sweep transaction account balances into non-transaction accounts to reduce reserve requirements and maximize investment opportunities.
For information, contact ABA at 800-BANKERS, (800) 226-5377.
Teller Functions and Customer Relationships
Eontec, a company that specializes in providing services across multi-channels in ways that can be integrated into current technologies, has introduced a product that combines teller functions with customer relationship management.
The product allows tellers real time access to a customer's entire transaction history as well as a user friendly way for those tellers to offer products geared specifically to that customer. The system includes teller software infused with customer relationship management capabilities. It is designed to work with a bank's existing information technology and customer relationship capabilities. It segments customers based on a flexible, predetermined, rules-based system and provides tellers dealing with customers a snapshot of customer data held within the bank's legacy system. Tellers see intelligent icons on their screen that allow them to connect to linked screens, ask customers more information and target offers. The system instantly records customers' answers to further questioning.
For information, visit the company's Web site at www.eontec.com.
Checks Presented by FAX
The effects of the terrorist attacks that began September 11 continue to ripple throughout the pond and where the wake hits is sometimes based on new or different uses of technology.
A company in California that allows companies to accept checks by fax claims its business has increased "significantly" because of the nation's nervousness about mail handling. CHAX says that its low-cost system ($229), which uses traditional fax technology and patented computer software to make checking account payments, eliminates concerns about public health caused by the recent mail-related anthrax scare. Paying customers simply fax their checks to the payee company. The company then enters information from the fax onto a form, and a new "check" is printed that will be cleared by a bank.
Electronically Delivered Mortgages
In another development, one of the new electronic documents companies claims that during crisis times, more than 150 homebuyers were able to take possession of their new homes through a service it provided to HSBC Mortgage Corp. Within six hours of the Sept. 11 crisis that left airlines grounded and overnight delivery at a standstill, the mortgage company went to eLynx, which was able to use its technology to delivery mortgage documents electronically. The electronic document delivery company has a product that enables a sender to post a digital closing file to a private, secure Web site. The title agency then can access the closing file, using a secure password, and print the file for immediate use.
Copyright © 2001 Bankers' Hotline. Originally appeared in Bankers' Hotline, Vol. 11, No. 12, 12/01
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