Tech Product & Service Update

Liberty Online Signs Its 500th Customer

MOUNDS VIEW, Minn.-Just five years after starting operations, Liberty Online has reached the 500th-customer milestone. A division of Liberty Enterprises, the company recently saluted the three key customers that helped them reach the 500th-customer plateau. Liberty Executive Vice President Mike Provenzano and Liberty Internet Services Sales & Marketing Manager Bill Wagner presented commemorative plaques to Hancock School Employees FCU, Oxford Federal Credit Union and Electel Cooperative Credit Union. The three credit unions represent the three Liberty Online levels of service: CharterBranch, InfoBranch and PromoBranch. Liberty Online also signed a record 43 new customers in December 2002.

Separately, Jeff Rendel, noted financial services consultant and a former regulator, financial executive, congressional lobbyist and university professor, will help credit unions "Discover the Possibilities" at the 2003 Liberty FiTECH Systems National Conference. The event is set for May 4-7 at the Evergreen Marriott Conference Resort, Stone Mountain, Ga. Rendel, the president of Rendel Holdings, works with credit unions to develop loyal members and deeper market penetration.

For more info: 800-275-4374, ext. 312, or www.libertysite.com.

Metavante Names Martire As New CEO

MILWAUKEE, Wis.-Metavante Corp., the financial technology subsidiary of Marshall & Ilsley Corp., has named Frank R. Martire as its president-CEO. Joseph L. Delgadillo has resigned as chairman, president and CEO. Martire joined Metavante in January 2003 as president, Financial Services Group, after previously serving as president and chief operating officer for Call Solutions. From 1991 through 2001, Martire was president and chief operating officer for the Financial Institutions Systems Services Group at Fiserv, Inc. The group Martire led at Brookfield, Wis.-based Fiserv served banking, credit union and mortgage service providers and employed over 5,000 individuals. During his leadership there, Martire built annual revenue from approximately $110 million to more than $650 million, serving clients in over 90 countries through operations in the United States, Europe, Asian-Pacific Rim and Latin America.

WESCO Changes Name To CU*Answers

KENTWOOD, Mich.-WESCO, a CUSO that provides data processing solutions, has changed its name to CU*Answers. The new name for the CUSO, which is owned by 56 credit unions, is based on the same name it uses for its entire suite of products. The former name was an acronym for West Michigan Computer Co-Operative, Inc.

In choosing the new name, said CEO Randy Karnes, "We considered three major questions that are universal themes for any organization thinking of changing their brand": does the brand identify our potential partners and industry interest, can we relate this brand to an Internet domain or URL, "does the brand limit the scope of our potential, until the mid-1990s, Karnes said WESCO was a Michigan-based company serving Michigan companies, and only allowed Michigan ownership. It has now diversified and expanded.

CU*Answers offers a wide variety of services for credit unions including its flagship CU*BASE Data Processing System in both an on- line and self-processing environment, Internet Development Services featuring the CU* HOME Internet PC Home Banking product, Member Check Processing and Direct Deposit processing services. WESCO provides combined services to 125 CUs nationally representing nearly 1,000,000 members and $4 billion in assets. For info: www.cuanswers.com.

CUSC To Use Oasis Technology To Expand

TORONTO-Oasis Technology has reached an agreement with Credit Union Service Corporation (CUSC), the largest shared branching network in the United States, to launch an expanded network to provide a wider range of services and process growing volumes of transactions. CUSC currently represents 24 participating state and regional shared service center networks and processes more than 38-million transactions annually. According to Oasis, new benefits to credit union customers participating in CUSC's shared services will include expanded ISO 8583 messaging support to provide greater flexibility for service centers and outlets to expand their transaction sets, along with greater fraud deterrents and enhanced fraud detection systems.

For info: www.oasis-technology.com or www.cuservicecenter.com.

PSCU-FS Says $12.9M In Fraud Is Recovered

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.- PSCU Financial Services (PSCU-FS) is reporting that out of 74,000 cases of suspected card fraud in 2002, it recovered $12.8 million, or 99.92% of its recoverable losses.

"We have a dedicated staff that carefully examines every fraudulent claim and strives to regain all recoverable funds. Their competence and commitment is demonstrated by our impressive recovery rate," said PSCU Financial Services President David J. Serlo.

PSCU Financial Services said it has also put in place a variety of techniques to decrease or prevent the potential for fraud, including neural network technology to analyze debit and credit card transactions to see if the characteristics of each transaction correspond with known patterns of fraud ach transaction is scored, and transactions that present a high probability for fraud are reviewed in real-time by analysts.

PSCU Financial Services said it also provides member-owners the ability to block debit or credit card authorizations for their card portfolio from specific countries, zip codes or currency exchanges when evidence of credit card fraud is being reported in these areas. These actions protect members from unauthorized use of their credit and debit cards, and can prevent losses. This program also allows individual cardholders to exempt their cards from this protection if they anticipate using their cards in these areas.

For web-based transactions, it offers the EasyToCUInfoLink service, which provides a secure link with member-owner websites and provides several layers of verification. For info: www.pscufs.com.

OSI Unviels eView; Signs Three Rivers FCU

GLASTONBURY, Conn.-Open Solutions Inc. (OSI), a provider of integrated enabling technologies for financial institutions, announced the launch of cView, an advanced suite of relationship management and business intelligence tools. The cView suite is pre- integrated with Open Solutions' relational core processing platform but can also be used with other processing platforms. It was designed to help financial institutions better manage customer and member interactions and expand relationships with prospects. "This single "complete view" of the individual allows the financial institution to gather, analyze and distribute information more easily, leverage interactions, direct marketing campaigns, and manage sales leads through a single interface," the company said.

Open Solutions' cView provides two-way messaging that allows a financial institution to set rules defining the real-time distribution and receipt of notes and messages throughout the organization. An activity management function tracks and manages customers' and prospects' activities, as well as referrals coming from employees and business partners. The business intelligence suite includes data warehousing capabilities and an enterprise-wide, web-based query and report writing tool that is integrated with Open Solutions' core data processing platform and is compatible with other application databases and other core systems. A profitability measurement application offers a precise picture of customer contributions to the bottom line by importing data from multiple sources and analyzing it through a variety of statistical models.

Separately, Three Rivers FCU, Fort Wayne, Ind. here has selected Open Solutions Inc. (OSI), a provider of integrated enabling technologies for financial institutions, to provide in-house data processing for its 70,000 members. The $375-million credit union has 18 branch locations, including 10 in-store locations in the local Scott's supermarkets, more than 25 ATMs and is a member of the shared branching network. In making its choice, Three Rivers FCU said it needed a system that would support its plans for growth in the years to come.

For info: 860.652.3153 or www.opensolutions.com.

American Airlines CU Signs With Summit

CORVALLIS, Ore.-The nation's eighth largest CU, American Airlines Credit Union, DFW Airport, Texas, has selected Summit Information Systems, a unit of Fiserv, Inc., to provide its Summit Lender Advantage and WebLoan24 loan origination solutions. The move will enable the credit union to streamline its internal lending processes, assure consistency of loan approvals throughout the lending organization and enhance the delivery of lending services to its 200,000 members worldwide, the company said. AACU reviewed more than 20 technology providers before making its selection.

"Ultimately, the Summit loan origination solution was selected for its sophisticated automated loan decision capability and its total integration with the Summit core processing system, which eliminates the need for third party interfaces," the credit union said.

WebLoan24, the Internet loan origination system from Summit, transformed the credit union's Internet loan origination process. "We wanted a Web solution that would make loan decisions from the same scoring tool used by our loan origination system," said VP-Lending Lori Hall. "Separate stand-alone systems for web loans, in-person loans, and telephone loans were not acceptable. It was critical for us to have a system capable of interfacing these different touch points while making loan decisions from the same loan-scoring tool. With WebLoan24, we can extend the convenience of Internet-based loans to our members and maintain constant, high -uality loan decisions."

Summit serves more of the top 250 U.S. credit unions than any other core-processing provider. The Summit system supports more than $77 billion of credit union assets and the financial services requirements for more than 9.9-million members.

For info: www.summitsite.com.

Wescom Reads Across America

CALABASAS, Calif.-Wescom IDS has combined its online loan application solution with Experion System's "trusted advisor" Interactive Loan Suite product to provide credit unions with an innovative end-to-end loan solution.

"This solution streamlines the process for members when making purchasing decisions regarding complex financial loan products and services.," the company said. "The two products-combined-now take the credit union member from financial advisement to lending fulfillment in one easy process."

The loan solution works by using Experion's "trusted advisor" technology (Interactive Loan Suite) that asks a series of financial questions to the member who can opt for the assistance of a credit union branch or call center personnel. This technology then provides advice to the member based on their financial situation. At this point, the Wescom IDS loan application software prompts the member to fill out the application for a loan. The software also has the capability to validate the member and prefill their application based on information available from the host. Upon approval, the loan is then fulfilled.

Mission Federal Credit Union, San Diego, which is the first financial institution to implement the technology, is currently in the final testing phase of the product-aptly named Automated Lending Solution (ALS). Mission FCU looks to release ALS to their members in the 2nd quarter of 2003.

Wescom IDS is a partnership between Wescom Credit Union and Integrated Data Systems, a financial software solution provider. For info: www.wescomids.com.

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