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April 18th, 2012
April 19th and 20th | Galveston Island Convention Center at the San Luis Resort, Galveston, Texas. 
Percento Technologies is sponsoring and will have a booth at the 2012 Texas Credit Union League Annual Meeting and Expo.
The event will offer the latest review of best practices, state-of-the-art technology solutions and a look into the future. If you plan to attend, feel free to stop by to talk and visit with us. And don’t forget to throw your buisness card into the bowl for a chance to win an Scotty Cameron Scotty Cameron Studio Select.
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April 11th, 2012
According to the report, “US Tech Market Outlook For 2012 To 2013: Improving Economic Prospects Create Upside Potential,” Forrester projects growth of 7.5 percent in 2012 and 8.3 percent in 2013 for business and government purchases of information technology goods and services, not including telecom services.
The lead tech growth category will shift from computer equipment in 2011 to software in 2012 and 2013, according to Forrester, with and IT consulting and systems integration services playing a strong supporting role.
Following growth of 9.6 percent in 2011, computer equipment purchases will slow to 4.5 percent in 2012, with Forrester citing the lingering effects of Thailand’s 2011 floods hurting parts supply in the first half. Additionally, Apple Macs and iPad tablets are expected to post strong growth in the corporate market and server and storage should grow in the mid-single digits.
Forrster also predicts that software growth will continue across all categories and that SaaS applications, general business intelligence products and specialized analytical tools will have the strongest growth. These products will help pull total software sales growth up to 11.4 percent in 2012 and 12 percent in 2013, according to the research. >more
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February 13th, 2012
For the past several years, bank IT budgets generally remained flat. The financial crisis and ensuing fallout forced belt-tightening across the industry. In 2011, however, bank IT executives finally enjoyed some breathing room thanks to some revitalized spending power.
And in 2012, bank technology budgets should continue to increase, if ever so slightly. But with the economic recovery still on shaky legs, and with regulatory scrutiny more intense than ever, banks’ IT investments are likely to be focused largely on driving efficiencies and complying with new requirements. Bank Systems & Technologyidentifies the IT trends and hot technologies that will change the game in the year ahead.
1. Convergence of Mobile and Online Technologies
Mobile banking started as a novelty, something only techies and first adopters felt comfortable using. But as smartphones have skyrocketed in popularity over the past few years, mobile banking adoption has increased along with it.
Initially, many banks’ mobile offerings consisted of their online banking model ported to an iPhone or Android device. As mobile has grown into a maturing channel, however, banks and their vendor partners have produced richer mobile offerings that take advantage of its unique capabilities. And the rise of the tablet gives financial institutions another unique interface through which to interact with consumers (see No. 4).
“Mobile banking, when it first became a hot topic, was very much an offshoot of the online channel,” says Jacob Jegher, senior analyst with Boston-based Celent. “Now mobile is maturing to the point where it is its own unique beast.”
While banks are embracing the mobile channel — and continuing to support the old standby of online banking — they are not integrating the technologies used to build e-banking solutions, according to Jegher. But that will begin to change in 2012. “We’ll see banks continue to develop solutions for these multiple channels but using a single set of technology to do so,” he predicts. A cohesive set of technologies, Jegher adds, will make mobile app and online development easier for banks to manage.
Jegher points to several high-profile acquisitions, such as Brookfield, Wis.-based core banking software provider Fiserv’s March 2011 acquisition of mobile banking and payments software provider Mobile Commerce (M-Com; Atlanta), as signs that the industry is moving in this direction. “The reason behind these kinds of acquisitions is because [vendors] need these tech assets that will allow them to serve their customers,” he explains.
As banks continue to search for efficiencies and consolidate operations, the convergence of mobile and online technologies looks to be a prime opportunity to do so in 2012.
2. The Rise of Business Process Management
Both to increase efficiency and ensure regulatory compliance, banks need better methods of gathering and reporting data. Most banks struggle with multiple back-office systems and siloed information. To address these issues in earnest, there will be a large investment in new and improved business process management tools in the year ahead, experts say.
Especially as banks wrangle with how best to harness Big Data and the technical challenges of analyzing and reporting very large amounts of information with a quick turnaround, they will need to invest in BPM tools that facilitate integration, says David Hamilton, president of the banking business at SunGard (New York). “Many banks still wrestle with multiple back-office systems,” he says. “They have to master customer data management, and I think there is a fairly considerable investment to be made in getting the basics right.”
In addition, integrated data systems will help with risk management, Hamilton notes. “There’s a need for good-quality risk data,” he says.
Data integration also will help banks obtain a more accurate view of their customers, Hamilton adds. Marketers often talk about breaking through data silos to look at data holistically and gain a more complete view of consumers’ habits, and now banks will look to do the same, he says. “These big trends, and the move for strategic cost reduction, map very clearly to bigger BPM investment,” he insists.
3. Goodbye Email, Hello Message Center
The abandonment of email for anything sensitive already has begun, and the shift to total reliance on message centers — dedicated web portals designed for secure communication between a bank and its customers — looks to be here to stay. While organizations that have message centers today still use them inconsistently, says Aaron Higbee, CTO of PhishMe, a Chantilly, Va.-based company that specializes in antiphishing training and education, they increasingly will become the norm for communicating with customers, rather than email.
The move to message centers will be beneficial on several fronts, according to Higbee. Many organizations currently employ third-party and joint marketing campaigns that have made unified messaging difficult, he explains. They also continue to send emails with the actual messages in the body of the email or include cryptic links. These practices make it difficult for end users to differentiate between a legitimate email and a phishing email, so they will have to change, Higbee contends.
He adds that many bank employees believe only consumers are targeted by phishing scams; many are unaware that they themselves are targeted by attackers trying to compromise the organization, and they may be unprepared to recognize truly targeted phishing attacks from advanced attackers. This is in line with a November report issued by Ernst & Young that found employees within organizations and businesses are increasingly the targets of hackers rather than individual consumers.
4. The ‘Tabletization’ of Banking and the User Experience
Tablet banking is still a young channel, but it is rife with potential. As with initial mobile forays, it may take banks some period of trial and error to determine how to build the best banking experience for the tablet environment. But most experts agree that the potential for a great tablet banking user experience, especially with the rich interface tablets offer, is nearly unlimited.
In fact, Celent’s Jegher believes that as banks realize the opportunity that the tablet format offers, they will begin to redesign their online banking experience to be more like their tablet banking offerings. “The current state of tablet banking, being very immature, you usually take what you have online and just put it into the tablet banking app,” he notes. “But what if you thought about it the other way around? The tablet offers the richest interface out there. What if online became influenced by tablet banking? The functionality of online banking is very mature, but the user experience is immature.”
Customers now expect a customizable, personalized experience on their terms, Jegher says. The “tabletization” of online banking and the advent of cutting-edge mobile technologies, such as mobile remote deposit capture, speak to the evolving bank user exeprience, he comments, adding, “This user experience trend is becoming more mainstream.”
5. Security increasingly is A Moving Target
Mobile devices are becoming nearly ubiquitous. Many industry experts and talking heads already have proclaimed the “death of the PC” as consumers increasingly spend their time on their smartphones and tablets, including for their banking needs. But as more people conduct their banking on mobile devices, these devices also will become the growing focus of hackers and fraudsters, who are always on the hunt for ripe targets.
Meanwhile, some experts say mobile devices are more prone to security breaches since they are a relatively nascent technology; plus, many people don’t think of them as the little computers they are, and don’t exercise the security precautions they would with, say, their laptop computers. An Ernst & Young report released in November 2011 on the current state of security threatsnoted that consumers who access sensitive data, such as banking information, on mobile devices at wi-fi hotspots are more susceptible to hacks.
E&Y also pointed out that businesses face another threat as more employees bring their own technology to work, part of the trend commonly known as the “consumerization of IT.” Banks especially should have firm policies in place for employees who use tablet computers or other mobile devices with work information on them, and they should be educated on using the proper security precautions, the advisory firm stressed.
Meanwhile, fraudsters are launching a new front in the security war as they begin to focus on a new target: community banks and credit unions. In an interview for BS&T’s December 2011 digital issue on e-banking, Aite Group analyst Julie Conroy McNelley emphasized that fraudsters have taken note of the shift in public sentiment toward smaller banks as an opportunity to uncover new targets. “I guarantee the bad guys were aware of Bank Transfer Day and that there were fraudulent applications made that they hoped would not get noticed and fall through the cracks,” she said. With an increased profile, Conroy McNelley added, credit unions likely will be targeted more frequently and thus need to be duly prepared.
6. Integrating Toward a Brave, New Post-Channel World
The days when a customer would walk into a branch to fulfill all of his or her banking needs are long gone. If a customer starts a loan application online and doesn’t have time to complete it, that customer then expects to be able to come into a branch on the way home from work to finish it. However, in too many cases the same customer often will be asked to start the process all over again in the branch, due to a lack of channel integration. Banks will need to better manage the seamless integration of online, offline and mobile channels in 2012 and beyond.
But banks thus far have gotten away with a low level of channel integration, according to SunGard’s Hamilton. “The banks’ business should traverse delivery channels, and that’s a big issue with their current channel architecture,” he says.
Many industry experts say we are moving to a post-channel world where the customer is the central and sole channel. Umpqua Bank’s Colin Eccles echoed that sentiment at BS&T’s Executive Summitin October, noting that channels aren’t important to consumers, at least not in the way banks have defined them. Customers must now be at the center of IT strategies, instead of a core platform or any specific channel technology, he said.
“Infrastructure is becoming a tapestry of decentralized delivery services,” Eccles told the audience during a presentation at the Executive Summit. “The channel isn’t important anymore; it’s all about the customer and thinking about how the customer is coming to you.” Seamless channel integration is critical, Eccles continued, and Umpqua and every other bank should be striving for it.
7. Pushing Self-Service Products to Generate Revenue
Perhaps the biggest banking story in 2011 was the decision by numerous banks to institute a fee for debit card usage — led by Bank of America’s announced $5-per-month fee — and the subsequent consumer backlash that forced BofA and others to rescind that feebefore widespread implementation. BofA, like other banks that floated similar plans for debit fees, said the fees were a direct result of the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that caps the amount banks can charge retailers for debit card purchases. The cap limits the fee to an average of 24 cents per transaction instead of the previous industry average of 44 cents. BofA estimated it would lose about $2 billion per year due to the provision, and the debit card fee was a way to offset those losses.
Sans debit fees, at least for now, banks will put the focus on self-service to grow the bottom line by encouraging customers to embrace cost-saving practices, such e-statements and online bill pay, according to Celent’s Jegher, who believes that banks will begin, if they haven’t already, to offer consumers rewards for embracing self-service channels. For example, if customers elect to move to electronic statements, the bank may allow them to view their check images for free.
“They can offer me an incentive to do something that doesn’t cost them money,” Jegher says. “It’s all about looking for self-service opportunities to generate revenue and cut down cost. Anything moving to electronic is a great way to cut costs.”
8. Reaching the Next Level of Mobile Evolution
Mobile banking and payments saw major growth in 2011 — from tech companies and financial institutions launching mobile wallets to consumers utilizing a mobile application to buy a cup of coffee. But 2012 will be the year in which mobile finance gains strategic direction, and banks will introduce next-generation mobile initiatives to drive balance sheet impacts, says Carl Tsukahara, chief marketing officer and VP of product for mobile banking and payment solutions provider ClairMail (Novato, Calif.).
According to Tsukahara, mobile remote deposit capture (RDC), still in its nascent stages, will become “a staple competitive feature for mobile account management.” However, he also notes that new security concerns created by widespread use of mobile RDC will create tension between risk and product management teams.
Tsukahara also expects banks to monetize mobile even more. According to a Forrester reportcommissioned by ClairMail, banks see two areas with the most potential for reducing costs or creating new revenue within the mobile channel: fraud prevention and marketing to customers. Surveyed banks reported that mobile banking already is playing a role in reducing fraud in a variety of ways — ranging from simple transaction and security alerts to mobile authentication for bank transfers.
“Still in its early stages, banks also report seeing mobile phones as a powerful marketing channel letting them make offers directly to individual customers at a particular time and place,” Tsukahara says. But the challenges here are similar to the challenges banks face overall, he suggests. “Banks realize, though, that in order to achieve this they must integrate mobile banking with CRM systems, earn customers’ trust and address privacy issues.”
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January 9th, 2012
Make no mistake about it. As we move closer to a point in time when the iPhone could double as an iWallet, security will be the killer feature that consumers will demand. Two weeks ago Apple introduced us to one of their future security systems that will handle auto login using advanced facial recognition technology. That’ll be great for iDevices not handling important documents and/or financial instruments such as debit and/or credit. For that, Apple has invented a heavy duty second tier of security that is quite ingenious. The key rests in splitting a user’s password recovery secret amongst two devices that are never carried together at one time. And you know it’s a serious security project at Apple when Bud Tribble, Apple’s VP of Software Technology, is the man behind this endeavor.
The Problems Associated with Today’s Security Login Measures
Computing devices, such as desktop computers, laptop computers, smartphones, PDAs, and so forth, include security measures requiring a user to enter credentials, such as a username and password, to obtain access to the computing device. However, it is inevitable that at least one user will forget their username and/or password. One approach to recovering this information is to log in as an administrator to reset the password, but this approach often fails because the user typically forgets the administrator credentials or forgets that the administrator account even exists.
Another approach is to prompt the user to enter a password recovery phrase, such as “what is your mother’s maiden name?” However, users typically enter this information once during account creation and often forget what they entered as the password recovery phrase. Yet another approach relies on biometrics, but this approach is not useful when the user is not nearby the computer or when the user dies, for example.
Many users view the above approaches as too inconvenient, especially if they involve a system administrator. The result is that the user chooses not to use a password or uses a trivial password, such as a short password or an easily guessable password.
Especially in the case of portable computing devices, this presents a security risk if an opportunistic thief steals the device. Although it could be difficult to provide both convenient password recovery and security in all use scenarios, one increasingly important scenario involves protecting a portable computing device when a user carries the device separately from a commonly associated peripheral device. If this particular use scenario could be protected and password recovery could be provided in a convenient way, then the user is more likely to use a password, and protection will be increased.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is an improved way to recover lost or forgotten electronic credentials, while still protecting the computing device in the common case when it is not with its associated peripheral device.
Apple’s Secret Solution
Apple’s invention describes an approach which stores a credential recovery secret associated with a computing device on a peripheral or companion device.
Threat Models
One of the threat models which this approach addresses is that in which an opportunistic thief steals a portable device while the user is “out and about”– that is, the device is being carried by the user and is physically separate from its associated peripheral or companion device. One example is a student that takes her laptop computer to a university class, but leaves the docking station in her dorm room, or an executive takes his smartphone to a client meeting, but leaves the charging cable in his office. Another example is an employee that takes his portable media player to work, but leaves the power cord in a locker.
Although there are other threat models that are not directly addressed by this method, this is an important one for portable consumer devices. If the password is not easily and conveniently recoverable, the consumer is likely to choose either not to use a password at all or to use a trivial password. Both of these choices can increase the threat of data loss.
Peripheral or Companion Devices
In one aspect, the peripheral or companion device should be something that users are already familiar with and use on a regular basis, such as a power adapter, printer, portable hard drive, wired or wireless network router, backup device, flash drive, a smartphone, a mobile device, a remote control, and an external monitor.
The peripheral or companion device could be a power adapter that stores a password or credential recovery secret and could include a first interface configured to connect to an electrical source, a second interface configured to connect to an electronic device, an intermediate module to adapt electricity from the electrical source for the electronic device, a memory, and a third interface connected to the memory through which a password recovery secret associated with the electronic device is received for storage in the memory.
The Key: Splitting the Recovery Secret
In one implementation, the recovery secret is data which is meaningless without the use of some companion data on the associated computer to understand and/or complement the recovery secret. The credential recovery secret could consist, for example, of the password encrypted with a large randomly generated universal unique identifier (UUID) associated with and stored on the computing device. Part of the credential recovery secret could be stored on the peripheral or companion device and part could be stored on a network accessible server. In one aspect, the credentials could be recovered via a combination of parts from the peripheral and the network accessible server. In the case of storing the credential recovery secret on a power adapter, the power adapter could provide power and a data connection to store and retrieve the credential recovery secret via a same physical connector.
In one variation, the system generates the recovery secret by encrypting the password using the UUID as the key. The system then stores the encrypted password, which is the credential recovery secret, on the peripheral device, and stores the UUID on the computing device. In this way, when the peripheral device is attached, the system could retrieve the encrypted password, and decrypt the password on the computing device using the UUID as the key. Because the computing device only has the UUID, the computing device cannot recover the password by itself, and because the peripheral device only has the encrypted password, the peripheral device can’t recover the password by itself.
Further, the UUID could be a sufficiently large number of bits, such as 128 or 1024 bits, so that a brute force attack is not able to easily discover the UUID. However, when the peripheral device is connected to the computing device, the computing device has access to both the UUID and the encrypted password, and could recover the password by decrypting with the UUID as key.
The password recovery approaches described in Apple’s invention could be used in conjunction with other password recovery approaches, so that a user has a choice or option of more than one way to recover a lost password.
Apple’ Best Scenario
At the heart of Apple’s invention they provide us with a full scenario which helps us understand the invention plainly. Apple describes a student bringing her laptop to study in the public library for an hour between classes. Because the expected study time is only an hour, she doesn’t bring the laptop power adapter with her. The student opens her laptop and sets-up her study materials in what she assumes is a safe corner of the library. She leaves the laptop unattended for a few moments to ask the librarian a question. When she returns the laptop is gone. A thief has stolen her laptop – but without the associated power adapter. The thief charges the stolen laptop with a different power adapter, but when the thief tries to retrieve the password from the laptop while connected to the different power adapter, the password recovery process disclosed herein is futile and does not yield the password.
In Patent FIG. 2, a laptop computer is one example computing device 202, but it could be any computing device that allows access to one or more resource based on credentials, such as a desktop computer, an all-in-one computing device, a smartphone, a tablet computer, a smartphone, a portable media player, a netbook, a thin client, and so forth.
Virtually every such computing device requires a link to a power source 206, and some include internal and/or external batteries which, when charged, provide for mobile use of the computer. One such link is a power adapter 204. Apple states that one reason for storing a password recovery secret in a power adapter is that users are already accustomed to using power adapters. Including this extended functionality has effectively zero resistance to consumer adoption because it does not change established consumer behavior.
In Apple’s patent FIG. 3 shown below we see a first example user interface dialog 300 for when a user forgets a computer system password which has been stored on a peripheral. If the power adapter is not attached, the system displays a dialog 400 as shown in FIG. 4. After the user clicks the “OK” button 402 or if the system detects that the power adapter is already connected, the system displays the dialog 500 as shown in FIG. 5.
Each Peripheral in a Group Could Carry a Different Password
The peripheral could store more than one password, for more than one user, and for more than one computer. The peripheral could store system passwords, website logins, other individual keys (such as PGP keys), and/or all or part of a keychain.
In one aspect, each peripheral in a group of peripherals stores a different aspect of the system. For example, a power adapter could store the system login credentials, a docking station could store file system encryption data, a home network router could store a keychain, and so forth. When the user attempts to recover the password, the system could prompt the user to connect the appropriate peripheral if it is not already.
A thief who steals the system while the user is “out and about” would not have at their disposal these peripherals to assist in recovering the stored passwords and credentials, and would thus be unable to use this approach to recover data from the system.
The Ability to Add Extra Layers of Security
In addition to splitting your secret recovery amongst peripherals, Apple is adding in the ability to add yet extra layers of security to your various computers. Apple states that in one aspect, the password recovery secrets stored in a peripheral could be tied to a biometric or other authentication. For example, when the user desires to restore the password using the password recovery secret, the power supply could require a fingerprint scan on the power supply itself or on the computer. And, in theory, Apple could also allow users to implement a facial recognition system component to the mix here.
In another example, when the user desires to restore the password, the computer retrieves a first part of the password recovery secret from the power supply and a second part of the password recovery secret from a secure server over a network, as noted earlier (perhaps using a work server and/or a future iCloud connection component. See Below).
A Basic Overview of a Next Generation Power Adapter that’s Smart
Apple’s patent FIG. 6 shown below illustrates an example power adapter 204, power transformer 204c and exemplary internal components.
Apple states that the computer could read and write credential recovery secret data to the memory (see patent point # 612) via the data connection. The memory could store recovery secrets in plain text format, in an obfuscated format, or an encrypted format. In one aspect, the recovery secret is data which is meaningless without the use of some companion data on the associated computer to understand or complement the recovery secret.
The intermediate module 204c could optionally include a processor 614 to facilitate access to the memory, but could function without a processor. For example, the power adapter could simply serve as secure mass storage which does not provide its own processing power and must be accessed using processing power of the attached computer.
The input/output interfaces noted as patent points 616 and 618 could be any suitable wired or wireless connector, such as serial, parallel, universal serial bus (USB), IEEE 1394 (Firewire), external serial ATA (eSATA), Ethernet, and “other yet-to-be developed or proprietary connectors,” which of course could be an upcoming version of Thunderbolt connector compatible with iOS devices.
At the End of the Day
It’s clear that Apple’s latest patent application goes a long way in demonstrating Apple’s focus on taking device security to the next level. Losing data is a major headache to be sure – but imagine the day when your iPhone will double as your iWallet. Imagine the grief and panic you’ll experience when that scenario kicks in. For damn sure you’ll want the very best security from Apple working for you until you’re able to notify your bank of the situation before real damage is done to your finances.
Consumers will either end up shying away from using their iDevices as an iWallet out of shear fear of losing it or having it stolen, or will have to be convinced that Apple has an iron clad security solution in place. In this latest patent, Apple believes that they’ve made the solution easy enough for consumers to want to use it and difficult enough to thwart disaster.
By providing consumers with the ability to add extra layers of security, such as biometrics of one kind or another and/or tying their devices to a work or Apple cloud solution, it would appear that Apple will be able to appeal to all levels of security minded consumers from novice to expert. And for die hard Macites, knowing that Bud Tribble is behind this invention will be enough of a seal of approval for them.
Guy L. “Bud” Tribble, MD, PhD is Vice President of Software Technology at Apple Inc. Tribble served as the manager of the original Macintosh software development team where he helped to design the Mac OS and user interface. He was also among the founders of NeXT, Inc., serving as NeXT’s vice president of software development. Avie Tevanian, Apple’s former senior vice president of Software Engineering, stated that Tribble was “one of the industry’s top experts in software design and object-oriented programming.”
Apple’s patent application was originally filed in Q3 2010 by inventor Guy Tribble.
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December 12th, 2011
 Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker by sales, said its fourth-quarter revenue would miss forecasts because of a shortage of hard disk drives.
The company cut its forecast for revenue in the October through December period to $13.7bn, plus or minus $300m, from an earlier estimate of $14.7bn, plus or minus $500m. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had also predicted revenues of $14.7bn.
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Intel cited a shortage in the supply of hard disks, which has resulted in computer manufacturers reducing inventories and cutting back on microprocessor purchases. The company is the leading producer of microprocessor chips, which perform the central processes of computers.
About one-third of the world’s hard disk drive production is located in Thailand, which was hit by devastating flooding in recent months. In November, many computer makers said they expected fourth-quarter sales would be affected by the disruption to their supply chains.
Intel said on Monday: “The company expects hard disk drive supply shortages to continue into the first quarter, followed by a rebuilding of microprocessor inventories as supplies of hard disk drives recover during the first half of 2012,.” However, the company added that PC sales were expected to rise in the fourth quarter from the third quarter.
Intel also cut its forecast for gross margin in the quarter from 65 per cent to 64.5 per cent.
The company’s shares were down 4.7 per cent to $23.84 in early trading in New York. Intel’s stock had risen 30 per cent over the past three months, helped by strong growth in chips. Rising demand for PCs in emerging markets have contributed significantly to that growth.
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October 3rd, 2011
 Congratulations to Allegiance Bank Texas’, Scott Lester, WINNER of the Percento Technologies drawing at the 2011 IBAT’s 37th Annual Convention, this week at the Westin La Cantera Resort in San Antonio, Texas. Mr. Lester won $100 Cash Gift Certificate.
Thank you to everyone who joined our drawing.
Financial Technology Support
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September 19th, 2011
 Bank of America (Charlotte, N.C.) today announced the full rollout of its its electronic bank account management (eBAM) service to corporate and commercial clients in the United States and Europe. This follows a year-long pilot with several early adopter clients.
According to the bank, eBAM is an integrated global application that helps automate and standardize the opening, closing and maintenance of bank accounts, treasury services and bank record of legal entities. eBAM facilitates the addition and deletion of authorized signatories and the digital execution of documents using e-signature technology, virtually eliminating the need for ink signatures, BofA said. In addition, reporting capabilities provide an audit trail of account management activities as well as a view into account signatories.
The application is one of a suite of technology solutions that Bank of America Merrill Lynch provides for clients through CashPro Connect, its file-based global integration solution that facilitates the host-to-host exchange of information, which encompasses any payment origination and reporting reconciliation.
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July 13th, 2011
 When you buy a new computer, you start with a clean slate, which is great, but you don’t have any of your documents or settings from your old computer. Luckily, it’s very easy to transfer all your files and settings from your old computer to the new one—whether you’re on Windows or a Mac.
If you’re migrating from Windows to Windows or a Mac to a new Mac, you can use your operating system’s built-in tools to migrate your data. If you’re moving between platforms, you can still do it, you just won’t be using any tools. In general, however, no matter what kind of computer you use, you’ll probably need an external drive to pull this off, so if you don’t have one, go pick one up. Once you’re done migrating your data, it works great for backing it up in case anything happens.
Migrating from Windows to Windows with Windows Easy Transfer
Windows 7 has a great tool built-in called Windows Easy Transfer, that can grab your data from an old computer—even one running Windows XP—and transfer it to your new machine with an external drive. To set it up, plug in your external drive and hit the Start menu on your new machine. In the search box, type “Windows Easy Transfer” and click on the shortcut when it pops up.
If you’re running Windows XP, you’ll need to install the Windows Easy Transfer files to your external hard drive first. Hit Next at the first window, then hit “An External Hard Disk or USB Flash Drive”. Then click “This Is My New Computer” and hit “No” at the next screen. Click “I Need to Install It Now” and pick your external hard disk when prompted. Windows will copy the necessary files, which should only take a minute.
When it’s done, unplug it and plug it into your old computer. If you don’t get an autorun prompt, head to My Computer and double-click on your external hard drive. From there, it’ll ask you if you want to install Windows Easy Transfer on your Windows XP machine. After it does, it will scan your computer for data to transfer.
Select the users you want to copy over and hit Next. Save the data to your external drive or flash drive and wait for it to transfer (this might take awhile).
If your old computer is running Windows 7, you can skip all the above steps and just open Easy Transfer directly from the Start Menu’s search box and picking “This Is My Old Computer”. It will then perform the above steps and transfer your data to the external drive.
Once you’ve moved your user data from your old computer to the external drive, head back to your new computer and plug the external drive back in to your new computer. If you closed the Easy Transfer Window, open it back up and navigate through the steps again, this time picking “Yes” when it asks you if Windows Easy Transfer has already saved your files to an external drive.
Select your drive from the list and check the users you want to transfer over. Wait as it transfers all your data (again, this could take a few minutes). When it’s done, your computer will restart, and you should see that all your files and settings are available on your new machine.
Note that this won’t migrate any of your programs, just your settings and documents. It will, however, let you know what programs you had on your old computer so you can write down a quick list of the programs you’ll want to reinstall.
Migrating from a Mac to a Mac with Migration Assistant
For this, you’ll either need to hook up your two Macs with a FireWire cable, or transfer data from a Time Machine backup drive (if you have one). So start up your new Mac and plug in your old Mac or Time Machine drive, and open up Migration Assistant from /Applications/Utilities.
Hit continue at the first window, then pick “from another mac” or “from a time machine backup”, depending on where you’re grabbing your old data. It’ll present you with a checklist of items, from which you can select what you want to migrate. In general, you’ll want to select everything here—that’ll make sure all your documents, settings, applications, even your wallpaper transfer to the new computer, and it’ll be like you just started up your old Mac with shiny new hardware.
The only situation in which this won’t work is if your new hard drive is actually smaller than your old one, like if your new computer has an SSD. In this case, unselect the less important things until it says you have enough room. You can always transfer other stuff later using the external drive method below.
Manually Migrating from Mac to Windows or Windows to Mac
If you’re migrating to a new computer of a different type (that is, if you’re moving from Mac to Windows or Windows to Mac), there isn’t a simple migration utility that will move everything for you. In this case, you’ll have to do it manually with an external hard drive. This is actually quite simple to do, and since you don’t have any settings to move, you don’t really need an extra utility—it’s just a matter of drag-and-drop.
The first thing you’ll have to do is format your drive to work with your old computer. If your old computer is a Windows machine, plug it in and right-click on its entry in Windows Explorer. Hit the “Format” button, and choose NTFS as the file system. A Quick Format is fine; we just need to make it compatible with this computer. Note that this will erase anything currently on the drive; so make sure it doesn’t have anything on it you want to keep.
On a Mac, open up Disk Utility from /Applications/Utilities and find your external drive in the list on the left. Click on it, and then hit the “Erase” tab on the right. If you have any files over 4 GB (like movies), you’ll need to format it as “Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)”, otherwise you can choose FAT32. Hit Erase. Again, this will erase everything on the drive.
Next, open up the newly formatted drive in your file explorer (Windows Explorer on Windows, Finder on the Mac). Open up another window in your file explorer and head to your user folder. On Windows, your user folder is located at C:\Users\Username, and on a Mac you can access it by clicking on your username in the Finder sidebar. In both cases, you should see all your user folders—like Documents, Music, Movies, Photos, and Desktop.
If you formatted your drive as Mac OS X Extended, note that you won’t be able to read it on the Windows machine. You’ll need something like previously mentioned HFSExplorer to get those files off.
Drag all of the folders in which you’ve saved files—like your Documents, Photos, and Music folders—to your external drive. You don’t need to drag every folder in there, just the ones you use—folders like AppData on Windows or Library on OS X don’t need to be copied.
Once it finishes, unplug the drive and plug it into your new computer. From there, you can open up each folder individually and drag those files wherever you want. For example, you can open up the Documents folder on your external drive, and drag all those files to the Documents folder on your new computer. Once you’re done, you should have quick access to all your old files, whether they be documents, music, or photos, and you won’t need to use your old computer anymore.
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June 29th, 2011
 Atlanta-based S1 Corporation and Jersey City, N.J.-based Fundtech Ltd. today announced a merger between the two financial services technology providers.
The combined company will be called Fundtech, and will be based in Atlanta. Fundtech’s cofounder and CEO Reuven Ben-Menachem will serve as executive chairman, and S1′s Johann Dreyer will remain CEO.
“This merger will create an industry leader that provides a complete suite of technologically advanced transaction banking solutions,” Ben-Menachem said. “The S1 and Fundtech organizations and cultures are very similar in their commitment to deliver innovative products and generate the highest levels of customer satisfaction. The companies have complementary product offerings and extensive cross-selling opportunities which will position the combined company to secure larger contracts and cultivate more strategic relationships with customers.”
Under the terms of stock-for-stock merger, S1 shareholders will own about 55 percent of the combined company, and Fundtech shareholders will hold about 45 percent. The combined company will have an eight-member board of directors with equal representation from both companies.
The merger expands the company’s product portfolio and geographic footprint. S1 is a payments and financial services software provider with more than 3,000 clients in more than 75 countries. Fundtech provides transactional software and services, and has more than 1,000 financial institution clients in more than 70 countries.
“The future of the transaction banking industry is highly dependent upon innovation and state-of-the-art solutions and this combination will put us at the forefront of these advancements,” Dreyer said. “Both companies have key strengths in technology, products, customers and culture, and we are extremely excited about the opportunities that will be created by combining these businesses. This merger will expand our geographic footprint and enhance our ability to accelerate revenue growth and increase profitability.”
Fundtech and S1 expect to complete the transaction in the fourth quarter of 2011.
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June 20th, 2011
 Congratulations to Integrity Bank’s Hazem A. Ahmed, WINNER of the Percento Technologies drawing at the 2011 IBAT Leadership Conference last week at the Hyatt Hill Country Resort in San Antonio, Texas. Mr. Ahmed won the Kodak PlaySport Zx5 Video Camera.
Thank you to everyone who joined our drawing.
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Tags: Hazem A. Ahmed, Integrity Bank, Percento Technologies, PlaySport Video Camera
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