Check processing tools covered the exposition floor at the Bank Administration Institute (BAI) Retail Delivery Conference (RDC), far surpassing displays of card technologies and casting doubt on the advent of a checkless society.
Whereas about 30 debit and gift card vendors displayed their wares, about 50 providers were offering Check 21-related systems at the 29th annual conference.
Credit unions in attendance seemed to embrace both the check and card sides of the exhibition.
America First CU announced at BAI it will work for the next 18 months to run Oracle's Siebel Branch Teller system across its 70 branches, in large part to take advantage of The Check 21 Act.
"Checks aren't going away anytime soon," explained Randy Halley, senior vice president, branch delivery at the $3.6-billion in Ogden, Utah.
Thousands of other CUs are following suit. For example, Navy FCU told The Credit Union Journal about its monster Check 21 project, which won't start paying for itself until 2008.
Such investments in time-and money-would suggest that check volume will remain significant in the long run, despite predictions for a checkless society.
Michael Croal, a senior director at Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Cornerstone Advisors, begged to differ:
"How can you justify investing billions of dollars...for a volume of work that is declining ever more rapidly and is nearing the precipitous edge of the cliff?" Croal recently wrote in GonzoBanker, a newsletter published by Cornerstone.
The number of checks written in the U.S. falls 4% per year, according to the Federal Reserve, and various sources predict volume will continue to fall by up to 10% until 2010.
As popular as Check 21 technologies were at this year's show, card systems also grabbed attention.
Patricia Roberts, vice president of branch operations and member services at $850-million Municipal Employees CU of Baltimore, said she was leaning towards reloadable Visa gift cards offered by Meta Payment Systems (MPS) of Sioux Falls, SD.
Meanwhile, Online Resources announced Card HQ, an online gift card store where members can purchase and reload retailers' gift cards through a CU's Internet banking and bill payment applications.
"We've already signed about 150 clients," said Matt Lawlor, CEO of Online Resources, the Chantilly, Va.-based firm providing online banking and payment services to financial institutions.
"Credit unions 'get it,'" Lawlor continued. "They are learning how to monetize the web channel by collecting distribution fees from gift cards. Card HQ may sound geeky, but it's big," he added.
Gift and other stored value cards are big enough to help explain why consumers will use less cash in the future, according to the Federal Reserve.
Authentication Kits Also On Display
Payment systems weren't the only dueling technologies at BAI; a dozen or so strong authentication vendors battled it out on the floor, each donning additional layers to their multi-factor authentication kits.
Corillian Corp. added TrueStamp, a website verification technology, to its layered Intelligent Authentication solution. TrueStamp imprints a multi-colored image-containing a personal phrase chosen by the member-on selected pages of the credit union website, letting the member know that the site is genuine before logging in.
"Our clients asked for TrueStamp," said Greg Hughes, chief security executive at Corillian.
"But what makes Corillian different from other authentication providers is that we also do online banking," he said. "We eat our own dog food."
The Portland, Ore.-based company offers online banking, payment and security solutions to the financial services industry.
Cogneto weighed in at the show with perhaps the most layers ever built into a single authentication technology.
Dubbed UNOMI, the tool authenticates based on a member's personal memories (called "passthoughts"), as well as facial recognition using webcams, a feature introduced at BAI.
UNOMI can also analyze a user's computing behavior, including mouse use and geographic location, as well as data from the user's device.
Current Threats Analyzed
Finally, the tool considers current security threats and issues a confidence rating for each authentication factor. Users may then be permitted account access according to the credit union's risk assessment.
The entire authentication process takes about 10 seconds, and credit unions can choose which factors they want to deploy, said Ryan McArthur, director of marketing and corporate development at Cogneto, an authentication firm based in London.
CUJ Resources
For info on this story:
* www.americafirst.com
* www.mecu.com
* www.cogneto.com
* www.corillian.com
* www.orcc.com
