FraudEliminator – Online Security Toolbar

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: FraudEliminator
Because lack of trust and other security issues consistently rank first on the list of reasons why people don't bank online, we will continue to devote a seemingly inordinate amount of attention to this subject. That said, another new browser toolbar was recently released by FraudEliminator, LLC, a company founded just this year according to its website. The toolbar is one of the better we've seen, combining excellent design with good functionality. Like eBay's toolbar, the FraudEliminator, monitors your and warns if a suspicious or flagged URL is entered in the address bar. It's a good tool, but how does a user know that the FraudEliminator is not some malware in disguise? Unless the company spends millions educating the marketplace, this particular plugin will have trouble gaining a following. However, if a bank were to partner with the program, releasing a co-branded or private-branded version, it could be a hit.…

Read more →

TowerGroup posts Realistic Estimate of Phishing Fraud Losses

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Metrics & Market Research, Security & Privacy
Link: TowerGroup The financial services analyst continues to weigh-in on the estimated losses due to phishing and identity theft, with the latter becoming a catch-all for all financial fraud. Estimates from the FTC, Gartner, and Javelin have run into the billions. Many media outlets have jumped on these estimates and made the incorrect leap that the losses were due solely to online fraud and phishing. Now, much more slowly the story is emerging that the actual online portion of these fraud losses is much smaller. Some even argue that online banking has reduced the total amount of fraud since consumers are able to pay closer attention to their accounts. TowerGroup's latest report on phishing losses pegs the 2004 loss at $140 million worldwide; or about $1 per online banking household. That's still a big number, and one that seems a bit high in our view, but it's far less than…

Read more →

Teller-Assisted Self-Service Platform : “Truly Automated Teller Machines”

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Service
Teller-assist terminals from Source Technologies could be deployed as a pod around a human. This mock-up from the company’s website shows a relatively tight arrangement. Initially, customers are likely to want a bit more privacy to feel comfortable using the semi-self-service terminals.  Teller-assist terminals can also be installed as standalone terminals anywhere in a branch, or like traditional ATMs, in an off-site location.  

Read more →

Introducing The Safe Banking Initiative

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Safe Banking Initiative
Financial institutions must adopt new safeguards in 2005 We interrupt the regularly scheduled newsletter for an important bulletin: The industry1 MUST adopt stricter online authentication and monitoring tools or risk a damaging backlash against online banking and payments. To help spur innovation on the security front, we are launching a new effort called the Safe Banking Initiative, or SBI for short. We hope to create an Underwriters Lab (UL) type seal of approval for financial institutions to display on the websites and other marketing material. BAI Retail Delivery 2004 On the way home from BAI’s Retail Delivery, I always try to reflect on the “themes” from this influential industry conference. This year it was all about integration: interbank (A2A) transfers integrated with bill payment; ATMs integrated with check processing; branches integrated with online banking; everything integrated with industrial strength CRM systems.  My biggest aha! occurred at an unlikely spot. Normally,…

Read more →

Gold Credit Report Package from Equifax

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Credit Reports & ID Theft Protection, Premium-level Products
If you are looking for ideas on how to create a steady stream of fee income from your online presence, look at how the credit report marketers have continued to command premium prices even as the government mandates annual free credit report access. We like Equifax 's approach. A laundry-list of features and benefits divided into a GOLD and SILVER offering. Gold, at $100 per year provides little more than Silver at $50 per year, but with a 30-day free trial, why not give it a try. Cleverly, the cheaper Silver plan does NOT have a free trial period. Many consumers will check out the Gold and never remember or bother to switch back to Silver. By the way, we first heard about this offering through a banner ad on eBay in June.

Read more →

Easy Anti-Phishing Defense for Banks

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Security & Privacy
With phishing reaching epidemic proportions (see chart), you need to look for ways to reinforce the authenticity of your website. Few banks have adopted one of the simplest trust building tools: greeting customers by name. This is simple to do through site registration and cookies. Online retailers have been doing this for years, it's time banks jumped on the bandwagon. Once registered, when accessing your website, either through an email link or via direct surfing, users will know they've come to the right place. For more information on anti-phishing defenses, read OBR 102, No Phishing: Enlisting users in your battle against fake emails

Read more →

U.S. Bancorp’s Stingy Email Storage

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Alerts & Messaging, Service, US Bank
Usually we discuss innovations, this is an exception. We'll call this a non-innovation, non-ovation for short. In a time where all the huge Web-based email providers, led by Google's free 1 GB of storage, U.S. Bank decides to delete emails sitting in customer in-boxes (within their online banking platform) after just 30 days. This includes estatement notifications. Assuming the average customer gets one message per month, and each message is 2k in length, that saves about 20k in storage costs per customer, compared to keeping the messages for one year. Assuming the marginal cost for disk space is $10 per GB, that policy change will save an awesome 2 one-hundredths of a cent per customer per year, or $200 per 1 million customers. Extensive online archive space is one of the biggest benefits of banking online. Don't be pinch pennies on one of the lowest-cost aspects of your online Usually…

Read more →

ComputerWorld Op-Ed on Phishing

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Security & Privacy
Phishy e-mails and Web sites: What's your responsibility? - Computerworld Larry Ponemon, founder of the Ponemon Institutute, and new IT ethics columnist for ComputerWorld, writes about phishing this week. His accout is unusual in the detail. His company surveyed 411 customers of a major retail bank that claimed to have clicked on a phishing email in May 2004 and who contacted the bank's customer service department seeking help. Of the sample, 65 (16%) provided account details in the scam. Of those, 5 (8% of 65) reported account losses totally $50,000. Doing the math, that means a little more than 1% of those clicking on the fake email lost money, averaging $10,000 per loss, or $120 per customer who clicked. Pretty good money for the crooks if you don't get caught. More interesting is that 310 (75%) felt that the bank's service reps were unprepared to deal with the problem. Nearly…

Read more →

GeoTrust’s TrustWatch Toolbar

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Innovations
There’s a reason why everyone and their uncle are offering toolbar’s that plug-in to Internet Explorer. They are a convenience to customers and a tremendous branding opportunity. The latest entrant from GeoTrust’s TrustWwatch unit: a privacy toolbar. It’s similar to Ebay’s Account Guard function with a green light for “verified” websites, yellow for “not verified,” and red for “warning,” websites on their black list. If you are working on a bank-branded toolbar (see OBR 85), consider licensing this functionality from GeoTrust  http://www.trustwatch.com/  Also, if you haven’t already done so, make sure your website is verified by submitting it to one of the trusted third party certification authorities such as Entrust, Betrusted, or GeoTrust.  

Read more →

Electronic Messaging Opportunities and How to use for Cost-Reduction Benefits

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Innovations, Service
Electronic messaging is wide-open for innovation. The content, delivery, and style of your electronic messaging provide numerous points of differentiation, and the business case is positive with potential retention, cross-sale, and cost-reduction benefits (see OBR 91/92 for a complete analysis). Source: Online Banking Report, 9/04  

Read more →

Online Banking Benefits: Consumer Needs Pyramid

By Jim Bruene Posted on
Categories: Online Banking Report
  Before embarking on new product and marketing strategies, perform a reality check on users’ expectations. Source: Online Banking Report, 9/04 Notes: 1We call it the illusion of real-time processing, because users don’t so much care whether a transaction is processed in real-time, what they care about is that they can SEE that you have accepted their transaction and have adjusted balances accordingly; the actual debiting/crediting can occur behind the scenes in batch mode. 2It’s extremely difficult to describe what’s “right” in words, but we know it when we see it.

Read more →