RECOVERY SOLUTIONS

Bankbeat’s featured 5-part series, “Recovery Solutions”, raises some questions. First is the old Wendy’s restaurant question. You know the one -- “Where’s the beef?”  Next, who actually is the audience here? Can’t be “C-suite” FI executives; they already know (more than they need) about “Deposit and Debit Card Activity”; that “Consumers Need Liquidity Options”; that there is “Greater Need for Overdraft Protection”, and so forth and so on. It’s all just the ho-hum day-to-day stuff.
How about a “bottom shelf” recovery strategy instead – one that would 1) solidify profitability and 2) minimize risk? It’s tangible and really simple – a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious). Here it is --- Pamper the Check Users. Read about it here.

THE SLOPPY SECURITY TEST -- A Quick Primer for Bank Executives

Overview:

“C Suite” executives – please take note. Do yourself a huge favor; get a trusted industry source to research your internal and cybersecurity protocols beyond a core processor’s provisioning. End Point Workstations and Peripherals as well as End Users and their “Behaviors” need attention these days.

We have seen it happen way too often -- System Administrators get lazy – they take short cuts. Workloads backup, users are promised updates, but schedules get broken. It is a never-ending battle for an overworked IT department to meet HR training and technical support needs of a growing financial institution. We know something about “growing pains” … we see it a lot with Credit Unions and Community Banking clients all over the country.

Example: Here is the sloppy way – Install software modules on a server and give everyone System Level Master Access. It is easy to provision and gets stuff operational in a hurry -- but NOT a good idea – and very short sighted!

CHECK SERVICE VENDOR AGREEMENTS:

As many FinTech researchers have been forecasting over the last several years... the future of the banking industry will depend on its ability to leverage the power of customer insight, advanced analytics and digital technology to provide services that help today's tech-savvy customers manage their finances and better manage their daily lives. We could not agree more ! It's time to put the customer first again ! At MICR Prime that is exactly what we do, put your business and profit goals front and center.

SOFTLIFTING

Ever heard of “SOFTLIFTING” – or, “SOFTLOADING”? Congratulations if those terms are unfamiliar – means you haven’t been sued by a software house for illegally duplicating their intellectual property ---- at least not yet you haven’t.

SOFTLIFTING and SOFTLOADING is legalese for software piracy; it’s sharing a program with someone who is not authorized by the license agreement to use it -- on individual workstations or remotely accessed from a central server. To add new users the proper protocol is to get sufficient licenses ahead of time -- standard practice for operating systems, core processors, etc. – the “big” stuff, so to speak.

Where things get sticky is with the little supporting adjunct packages. They are all necessary but during set up routines don’t command the same attention. So, it winds up being a copy and paste operation and – “Hey, we’ll just clean up the mess later.” Trouble is, clean up gets shoved down the “2-DO” list, and never addressed.