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Articles from
November 2006
Painting a Complete Wealth Management Picture |
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IN NEED OF A BETTER AGGREGATE VIEW OF HIS OWN HOLDINGS, AN ENTREPRENEUR BUILT ONE.
 F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” Hemingway’s rebuttal: “Yes, they have more money.”
Chris Snyder learned how the rich are different after he sold Loan Pricing Corporation to Reuters for $50 million.
“I had money to worry about for the first time in my life,” he recalled. “When you cash out of a company, you become your own trust fund baby.” He went to see several private bankers and came away underwhelmed. They all sounded the same with recommendations of a mix of stocks, bonds and a few miscellaneous investments.
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Take Control of your Business: Manage and Mitigate Risks |
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 Today, enterprises are facing a growing number of compliance
regulations that require controls to be in place to mitigate risk
across many processes within an organization. Areas that are gaining
significant interest today are email and records management. Email is
recognized as the de facto mission-critical application driving
financial institutions today, where any loss or mismanagement is a
potential serious issue.
With government regulations, audit requirements, and potential legal
disputes, enterprises need their email systems to be properly archived
and searchable so as not to hinder business continuity. Email messages
need to be accessible 24/7.
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ATM Integration Strategies to Capture Customers |
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 For the first few decades of the ATM industry, the ATM environment was well defined. Financial institutions would buy ATMs from a limited number of manufacturers; these ATMs would run software provided by the hardware vendor; and, in most cases, the ATMs would also be serviced by these same providers. The result was a stable operating environment that helped support the emergence of this important banking delivery channel.
Based on the 2006 ATM Deployer Study, the most comprehensive study of the U.S. ATM industry with data covering over 134,000 ATMs, 26% of U.S. ATMs are currently running Windows. However, ATMs are poised to change significantly as deployers migrate from OS/2 to Windows and from proprietary software to open standards. Within two years, the adoption of Windows-based ATMs will grow to 63% of the installed base. Moving to Windows-based ATMs offers at least three important advantages:
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New Product Helps Firm Generate More Trading Ideas |
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 In fixed income trading, satisfying customer needs has long involved sharing information among traders and sales staff during the day or at morning meetings before trading opens. What’s in the inventory? Where are prices heading? Is the market looking for more safety or higher returns? A salesman’s success depends on keeping track of what the firm has and what his customers want to buy or sell and then trying to bring the two sides together in a trade.
A new product developed with input from a major investment house is designed to improve the way the sell-side fixed income desk works. One fixed income trader who worked on designing the product and whose firm was an early adopter describes it as “a platform that fits the workflow of sales and trading.”
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Two Distinctive Banks Find Flexibility and Customizability from .NET-Based Platform |
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 Lydian Private Bank has carved out a unique niche in the banking
industry. In fact, it has carved out two unique niches. The bank has
two distinct divisions, Lydian Bank & Trust, a Palm Beach, FL-based
private bank specializing in sophisticated solutions for high-net-worth
families, and VirtualBank, a customer-service focused Internet bank
with low-rate loans, high-yield savings products and a wide array of
products available through the Web.
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Accurate Automated Appraisals Protect the Underinsured |
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 Hurricanes in the South and fires in the West have led to one common
discovery across geographies and disasters – many homes are insured for
far less than their replacement cost. Don Robinson, a California
biologist, had his four-bedroom home insured for $233,000; after
wildfires destroyed it a contractor estimated the replacement cost at
$460,000, the Associated Press reported.
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Check 21 Opens New Competitive Landscape |
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 Remote check capture, both at bank branches and company offices, has
gone from a concept to a competitive edge in banking during the last
year.
The major banks have gone from pilots to rollouts, said Steve Buchberger, senior vice president at Wausau Financial Solutions.
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Pivotal CRM: The Hub of the Brokerage Platform |
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 Most wealth management firms offer a wide range of products and services, the provision of which requires a host of middle- and back-office applications. Unfortunately, as a firm’s technology tools multiply, the complexity of its information infrastructure intensifies, and it becomes increasingly difficult to aggregate this information meaningfully to perform everyday business activities.
The Holy Grail for wealth management firms is to provide a truly
holistic client view that enables financial advisors to make strong
short- and long-term financial recommendations for their clients. But
to achieve this, financial advisors need to be able to leverage a
single wealth management information platform to get streamlined, rapid
access to all important information about their client, without hunting
through multiple applications.
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Charter Bank's New Encryption Device - the Keyboard |
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 At Charter Bank in Bellevue, WA, multi-factor authentication will soon
be as close as a keyboard. The bank is using an application from
BioPassword, an Issaquah, WA company, to capture a user’s unique typing
rhythm and then use that rhythm to validate his identity the next time
he logs in.
With BioPassword running on a Windows server, a
user with an existing user name types in his password 10 times. The
server learns the unique rhythm of his typing and creates a profile and
establishes a strong authentication process without using a token or
thumbprint reader.
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Rabobank’s TV Banking Reaches Out to Customers in Their Easy Chairs |
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 On the one hand, Rabobank in the Netherlands is a modern, fast-growing,
bank with 50 percent market penetration in its home country that takes
pride in challenging convention and looking for new opportunities. On
the other hand, with a history that dates back more than a hundred
years, deep roots in agriculture, and a branch in virtually every town,
it has prided itself on a reputation as a respected, comfortable
community bank, with strong bonds to local neighborhoods.
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Connecting the Dots: Improving Bank to Corporate Connectivity |
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 The Microsoft stand at Sibos, the SWIFT international banking conference in Sydney, attracted a standing room only crowd to listen to Ed Barrie of Microsoft treasury and Susan Feinberg, a senior analyst at the TowerGroup, discuss Microsoft’s advances in linking its treasury operations to SWIFTNet.
For David Vander, the managing director for worldwide banking at Microsoft, this interest in linking corporates to banks is part of a larger industry trend.
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Tracking ATM Cash |
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 A vendor provides the link between banks that have technology galore, and armored car companies that may have old IT systems or none at all.
Ever wonder how come the local ATM never runs out of twenties? Or
why no other ATM does either? Morphis, Inc. software can predict the
demand at a particular ATM (more demand over the weekend in an ATM near
a sports arena, less for a central business district with little
shopping) and get the cash delivered, track the delivery transaction,
report to the bank and send out the bill for delivery.
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Retail Bank in Hong Kong Launches Online US Equities Trading |
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 Customers who click into the i-banking section of CITIC Ka Wah Bank see a cheery greeting:
“At CITIC Ka Wah Bank, we bring you optimal financial solutions to help
you get the most out of life… both now and in the future. Simply log on
to i-banking and experience the ease and convenience of online
financial management.”
Reflecting Hong Kong’s powerful international outlook, the bank offers
diversified portfolios for global wealth management. Now it is also
offering zero-commission online US stock trading for its CITICfirst
customers.
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Desjardins Speeds Data Delivery While Containing Costs with ISA Server |
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 Desjardins Group has sped the delivery of data for key Web applications throughout some of the more remote locations of its 1,500 points of service, without the cost of adding bandwidth to the network.
Based in Quebec, Desjardins Group is the largest integrated cooperative in Canada, with locations in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and New Brunswick. But managing such a geographically spread out network from a central location posed challenges, particularly in locations with bandwidth restraints.
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The Bank of Hawaii Engineers an ATM Mainframe Migration to Windows |
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 The Bank of Hawaii depends on its ATM network to provide cash to
tourists, serve the customers of the credit unions that have service
agreements with the banks, and to support local businesses by providing
currency and rolls of coins through its Super ATMs. The $10.2 billion
bank, which operates 500 ATMs throughout Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa,
Palau and Saipan, processes about three million transactions a month.
So
when the bank’s ATM software contract with ACI was coming up for
renewal, it began looking for alternatives to the Tandem – now HP
Nonstop – system that was at the core of its ATM operations.
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Duet Brings New Ease-of-Use to Enterprise Applications |
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 Microsoft and SAP have answered the prayers of millions of business
end users who wanted to leverage the power of SAP business applications
through the intuitive interface of their Microsoft desktop.
Duet, a jointly-developed solution, enables business users to access
SAP applications like time and expense management, budgeting, travel
management, as well as business intelligence applications directly via
Microsoft Office.
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HP TARGETS SERVICE, COMPLIANCE, EFFICIENCY AND OUTSOURCING |
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 As one of the largest enterprise providers to the financial services
industry, HP’s financial services strategy has been formed by
experience. That experience includes a significant presence in the top
200 banks, top 50 brokerages, top 25 insurance carriers and all 100 of
the world’s major stock and commodity exchanges.
From those relationships, and others with firms of various sizes, HP
has targeted four key business priorities that can be addressed through
industry solutions: customer service, control & compliance,
efficiency and outsourcing/offshoring.
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People on the Move |
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 Wachovia Online Payments Director Jumps to Citi
Open Solutions Taps Pinataro to Head Corporate Financial Solutions Group
Hodskins is Lumigent’s New Business Development VP
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Gonzo Wealth Management Advice |
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 At BAI’s Retail Delivery Conference & Expo last year, Terence Roche and Steve Williams from Cornerstone Advisors of Scottsdale, AZ, ran a highly provocative session on “The Myths and Realities of Sales Culture” in banking. Highlights included the tip that a drawn-out account opening where a bank employee tries to capture a comprehensive view of the customer for future cross-selling opportunity doesn’t fool customers, and they don’t like it...
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Banking Strategies for a Rapidly Changing Marketplace |
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 Consumers have more choices than ever before when it comes to handling their finances. Many institutions are struggling to find the right mix of retail and commercial strategies, as well as the optimal way to combine their self-service, online and branch channels. Some financial services firms focus on ‘convenience,’ others on ‘service,’ and still others on the ‘customer experience.’ Some analysts argue that any institution’s success in retail banking demands a continual investment in their business and a close monitoring of changing trends in technology and customer behavior – all backed by a management team that has a strategic clarity to their approach.
We asked industry leaders for their insight on what marketplace trends to be most focused on today and going forward; some of the more innovative strategies they have seen applied; the role technology plays in determining strategy; and how they help FIs compete in this rapidly changing marketplace.
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From the Editor: The Nest Egg's Growing Political Clout |
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At its best, wealth management, the topic of this issue’s cover
story, brings together sophisticated financial planning with a mix of
appropriate financial products to meet the needs of an individual,
couple, or family. As Gary Linieres, sales director for Financial
Objects’ ActiveBank in London observes, at the high end wealth
management covers not just regular financial investments but art,
residential real estate, and health insurance. For the very rich,
private bankers often act as a concierge for their clients – not simply
advising on investments but also booking a jet to transport them to
England, obtaining tickets to Wimbledon, and arranging for hotel
reservations.
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