Headlines:
No Links in Wachovia E-Mails
Wachovia Corp., increasingly worried about fraudulent e-mail, says it has stopped including online links in messages it sends to customers.
Instead, the Charlotte banking company says, it has begun to send e-mail notifying customers that they have mail in its hosted message center. Getting there is up to the customers.
"It is clear that customers like the convenience of e-mail but not the threats associated with it," said Lawrence Baxter, Wachovia's chief e-commerce officer, in a press release Tuesday.
In May of last year Wachovia call centers were hit with more than 1,000 customers questioning an e-mail message the company sent after putting customers of the old Wachovia and First Union Corp. on the same online banking system. (First Union bought Wachovia in 2001 and took its name.)
The e-mail's embedded Internet link made account holders suspect they were being probed by a "phishing" scam, in which they would be asked to give up account information to someone who might use it to steal their money.
In June, as it neared a similar conversion for customers of SouthTrust Corp. of Birmingham, which it bought last November, Wachovia warned customers against phishing scams.
Doug Caldwell, a spokesman, said Wednesday that it began notifying customers last week of the policy change, using statement stuffers and brochures in its branches.
Wachovia's online message center is part of its password-protected online banking site, which customers can access only after they have logged on. Mr. Caldwell said the company is working on an upgrade of that system, which should be available for commercial customers later this year and for retail customers in 2006.
Enhancements will include improved an broadcast capability, for Wachovia to communicate with many customers at once; to attach documents, such as lending forms, to messages; to "reply to reply," generating a message that includes prior messages; and improved audit and reporting features, Mr. Caldwell said.
Fiserv Health Unit Hires EDS
Fiserv Inc. of Brookfield, Wis., plans to outsource health-claim processing to Electronic Data Systems Corp. of Plano, Tex., as it expands its services to health plan providers.
Fiserv, a major provider of core processing and transaction processing services, said it will use EDS' MetaVance Administration and Finance application. Under a multiyear contract, EDS is also to provide mainframe and Web hosting for health plans that work with the Fiserv Health unit.
Fiserv announced in June that it would offer servicing for health savings accounts, which banks can sell to people with high-deductible health-insurance plans. The company plans to market the service first to the 8,000 community banks and credit unions with which it has core processing relationships.
Greg Ishmael, a product delivery manager at EDS, said the companies plan a nine- to 12-month development project, with the system ready for use by health plans next summer.
MetaVance tracks the eligibility and benefits for individual health plans and their subscribers, he said, and provides an interface to health-care providers for the payment of claims, Mr. Ishmael said in an interview Wednesday.
The product also has accounting features to tie into HSAs, which are depository accounts, and the flexible spending accounts in which employers hold funds for their employees, he said.
