Osborne Partners, a San Francisco money management firm, has gone live with Advent Portfolio Exchange (APX) from Advent Software to manage investment operations from client prospecting to client reporting.

APX leverages Microsoft technology, including a single SQL Server relational database, .NET technology and a Web browser user interface. It also features industry leading portfolio management and reporting; integrated client relationship management tools; advanced user security; transaction management and audit features; enhanced fixed income functionality; and customizable reporting and queries for client and portfolio information. That fit the requirements of Osborne Partners, which serves institutions and families who have invested through the company for generations.

“Our business is growing very rapidly and we needed a solution to help us take on additional clients, while at the same time managing requests for more customized reporting and increased levels of service,” said Robert C. Gillooly, partner and portfolio manager at the firm. “Consolidating multiple sources of client data was a priority. Our business is becoming more complex as we add new forms of communication with our clients, including e-mail and electronic statements. Our ability to track and organize this data is extremely important to growing our business.”
www.osbornepartners.com
www.advent.com

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Harleysville Insurance, a regional provider that ranks among the top 60 US property and casualty firms, has selected the AQS/advantage suite to make it easier for agents to do business with the carrier.

“We will further enhance our competitive position by developing products more quickly and reducing the amount of time necessary to get them to market,” explained Robert G. Whitlock Jr., Harleysville senior vice president and chief underwriting officer. “With the AQS software, we will be able to better respond to the changing needs of the marketplace.”

The company’s senior vice president and CIO, Akhil Tripathi, said AQS will streamline workflow and improve productivity.

“The user interface is extremely intuitive, and because it is Web-centric, its 24/7 accessibility aligns with our key business priority to make doing business with Harleysville easier and more efficient for our agents,” he said. “Also, the AQS suite’s underlying technology offers a solid foundation upon which we can generate additional efficiencies going forward.”
www.harleysvillegroup.com
www.aqsadvantage.com

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Panopticon, whose data visualization tools for trading and business intelligence are used at JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and are available to 150,000 Reuters 3000 Extra users, has launched a new version of its technology, Panopticon Explorer .NET (PE). It uses advanced tree-mapping technology to bring business data to life by creating clear, concise and customizable visual representations. A lightweight consumer version is available for free from the company’s Web site.

“This is a way of looking at fast, dynamic data,” explained Willem De Geer, a founder of the company. The new software for creating a faster user experience was in development for more than three years.

Traditional charting, said De Geer, is used after the fact to present static data. With Panopticon Explorer, a user can drag and drop business intelligence from Excel, Access or SQL Server into the charting application and see visualized analysis. It groups items that belong together, shows the relative size and changes in value. A slider bar across the bottom helps users find the exact data they want, and when they do, they can drill down into the color image for more information. (See demo at http://www.panopticon.com/video/explorer/) In addition to working with structured data, it can be used with unstructured data such as news. A user can import news from an online service and Panopticon Explorer .NET will group the stories, provide color coding by category and show the relative size of the story.

“This provides a way of very, very quickly shortening the time from when data is created to when the end user can act on it,” said De Geer. PE also offers a space in the margin where users can create notes to pass along to colleagues, making it a collaboration tool.

Offering some examples in finance, De Geer took 872 companies in New York and presented them in a view that showed one-day changes in their stock value. Or a user can look at mutual funds and set parameters for funds to look at, such as those that gained or lost 15 percent or more in one day.

Building PE on a Microsoft platform made sense because that is where users are doing their own analysis, said De Geer.

“Even if they have big proprietary systems, they often export the data into Excel and do their analysis on the desktop, so it was essential for us to provide them with this platform to help them make sense of the data.”

PE can be linked to real-time data from Bloomberg or Reuters, for instance, and update constantly. The company signed a deal with Reuters last year to include Panopticon with Reuters 3000 Plus. De Geer is confident that users, once they try it on their personal computers, will want to use it at work.

“The best growth in this kind of visualization is for people to try their own data.” That’s why the company offers the software in a free download for individuals. (http://www.panopticon.com/panopticon/download/explorer). Trying to sell individual licenses at $99 didn’t look like a very promising business model, he added.
www.panopticon.com

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Corillian, the online banking software provider, and  StrikeForce Technologies have joined forces to offer anti-fraud solutions to the financial services industry.  Corillian and StrikeForce will protect financial institutions’ online users with a comprehensive authentication service combining Corillian’s Intelligent Authentication with StrikeForce’s "Out-of-Band" authentication platform, ProtectID.  The joint offering helps to proactively detect fraudulent online activity and prevent illegitimate users from accessing accounts. Benefits include easy implementation, ease of use, strong authentication and device flexibility.  
www.strikeforcetech.com
www.corillian.com

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Microsoft and the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) are teaming up to manage the security of their technology infrastructures and battle emerging security risks. At the ICBA national convention in March, Microsoft and the bankers announced they would conduct an eight-city security tour and provide Webcasts to ICBA’s nearly 5,000 members.

“ICBA’s relationship with Microsoft will greatly help us by providing information we need to enhance the security of our technology infrastructures and provide improved protection for our customers,” said Ken Parson, who chairs the association’s payments and technology committee.
www.icba.org

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Sagicor Life has selected Insurance Technologies' ForeSight for its worldwide agency force. Initially, Sagicor will implement customer resource management, agent activity evaluation and tracking, financial needs analysis, product suitability recommendations and illustration capabilities. Subsequent phases will deploy electronic-application and in-force policy information. The software allows Sagicor agents to operate inside a single system for all their sales management activities. Michael McKenzie, assistant vice president at Sagicor, said the new system would put it well ahead of its competitors.
www.sagicor.com
www.insurancetechnologies.com

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TrustBank in Olney, IL has turned to Nexus Software to provide multi-channel middleware that lets the bank keep its options open for future technology. With more than $150 million in assets, the bank, which is a subsidiary of Rich Land Bancorp, has implemented the distributed client version Nexus Software’s INvolve middleware. It will work with Harland Financial Solutions’ core banking platform, Phoenix System, which TrustBank uses for core and teller function. By installing INvolve, TrustBank can support any combination of fat, slim and/or thin client configurations deployed in Windows or Linux environments. By working with multiple configurations and environments, the distributed client offering increases flexibility, while lowering the total cost of ownership.

“Since implementing INvolve Distributed Client in October, we have seen marked improvement in the deployment of work station updates,” said Jason Kern, IT manager for TrustBank. “By seamless software updates, neither our employees nor our customers are inconvenienced or disrupted in their day-to-day activities.” Nexus Software’s Zero Touch administration tools centralize client configuration, software updates and other administrative activities.  
www.trustbank.net
www.nexussoft.com

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Pacific Select Group has selected SunGard’s Protogent software for its broker compliance with investment suitability, quality of supervision, and fast response to regulatory requirements. The firm, a subsidiary of Pacific Life Insurance Company, will integrate it with AdvisorConnect to conduct pre- and post-trade review.

“Protegent Surveillance is one of the most comprehensive compliance solutions available,” said Mike Graham, vice president of technology at PSG. “It will provide our broker/dealers with a more efficient, cost-effective way to automate and accelerate review of trades in the field. Not only will Protegent Surveillance help to expedite trading for reps, it will provide efficiencies for our broker/dealers’ home offices and compliance officers.”

Protegent Surveillance will augment AdvisorConnect’s automated trading process, providing reps with the ability to open a brokerage account and enter trades online, conduct trades more efficiently, and provide more comprehensive service to their clients.  
www.pacificlife.com
www.sungard.com

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XDimensional Technologies’ new release of its Nexsure insurance agency management solution includes features to support side-by-side comparison and analysis of multiple policies. The features, called Nexsure’s Market Analysis, should help agents and customer service representatives with assessing and choosing the best policies for their clients while improving compliance.

“Agents must be empowered to find the best price-to-value combinations within the markets they represent,” said Bob Juracka, the company’s president. “Nexsure’s Market Analysis was designed to do just that through an efficient, structured and documented approach.”

“Market Analysis is exactly the kind of forward thinking and innovation that we’ve come to expect from XDimensional Technologies,” said Patricia Alexander, vice president of Agency Vision, IBTX Risk Services. “We see Market Analysis as an extension of an already impressive remarketing capability within Nexsure. New introductions like this not only improve our business productivity, but it makes everyone’s life a little bit easier.”

Market Analysis allows the user to select multiple policies in-force, quotes, or renewals for a side-by-side comparison while differences such as coverage inclusions, deductibles, and risk schedules are visually highlighted. Once a policy has been selected as the ‘optimum’ choice for that client, that policy is selected as the ‘winner’ and the analysis of the candidate policies is memorialized in the client history file for future reference/justification of the selection.
www.xdti.com

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Securian Financial Group, one of the country’s leading providers of financial security for individuals and businesses, has selected the AdminServer Policy Administration System to provide a common platform for the rapid development, launch and efficient administration of Securian’s new life insurance products.

“Our selection of AdminServer was in large part due to the flexibility of the system and its use of a rules-based model which allows us to quickly develop new products and take advantage of windows of market opportunity,” said Bob Ehren, vice president for life product manufacturing with SFG.  “And, with the use of the common calculation  engine, we know we are producing  consistent  calculation  results through the life of the policy; from illustration to policy administration.”

Larry Thoen, a life actuary with the company, said AdminServer’s features will enable business users to be more closely involved in the definition and development of new products.

“Our technology was once a limiting factor, but with the AdminServer system our products are now only limited by our own ingenuity.”
www.securian.com
www.adminserver.com

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Frontier Farm Credit (FFC) and Texans Credit Union (Texans) have gone live with customer relationship management (CRM) solutions from Onyx.

"Performance, ease-of-use, the ability to scale as we grow and change, all of these capabilities were crucial in our selecting Onyx," said Greg Gallant, executive vice president and chief technology officer for Texans. "We also needed to trust that the vendor we chose would support us, both today and into the future. Onyx is one of the most established CRM vendors and has a history of introducing products that deliver outstanding performance."

Texans set an ambitious goal of having the contact center implementation completed within eight weeks, continued Gallant.

“Not only was that deadline met, we are already enjoying benefits beyond those initially anticipated,” Gallant added.

At Frontier Farm Credit, which was created through a merger of two independent farm credit associations, staff members were trying to cope with two standalone CRM solutions that didn't interoperate or share a central repository of customer data, said Doug Hofbauer, president & CEO.

“With employees in eight offices serving 6,000 customers, we needed a cost-effective solution that would integrate throughout our enterprise. The system also had to be easy-to-use to ensure staff adoption, scalable to accommodate future growth, and strong in delivering real-time data to front-line people."

FFC looked at the CRM field, including Salesforce.com, Microsoft CRM, SalesLogix, Pivotal and Siebel, before selecting Onyx.

“We asked each vendor if their company used their own products, only to find Onyx was one of the very few that could answer with an unequivocal yes,” he added.
www.texanscu.org
www.frontierfarmcredit.com
www.onyx.com

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The ability to offer modern, dynamic services to customers at the ATM was cited as a key driver by ATM network owners undertaking migrations to the Windows platform, according to a worldwide survey published today by Level Four Software, the leading provider of open standards-based ATM testing and development software.

“With the withdrawal of support for IBM's OS/2 operating system and the emergence of open standards, the ATM industry has been forced to reassess the technology and business model for the humble ATM," said Martin Macmillan, CEO of Level Four Software. "While network infrastructure migration is costly, the ability to improve customer experience and ultimately drive revenue through the ATM channel with dynamic new services is proving a compelling proposition for ATM network owners looking to capitalize on their investments.”

In a global survey done over the last three years, banks and third party processors responded overwhelmingly in favor of improving the frequency and diversity of services they can offer to customers via the ATM. Owing to complexities in the existing, outdated ATM software model, only 31 percent of respondents currently change their ATM information on a monthly or more frequent basis.  But most users wanted more flexibility.

“The existing offerings in the marketplace are largely repackaged legacy software designs coupled with modern tools, resulting in a static and untargeted service offering,” said Macmillan. Fifty-seven percent of respondents' ATM networks will be converted to Windows as the operating system by June 2006, while fifty-three percent believe IFX will be the industry standard protocol for communications between ATM and host devices within five years. 
www.levelfour.com/surveyresults

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