FirstLine Deploys GFS Solution For Cross-Country Field Service Delivery
GOLD RIVER, Calif., April 10 /internet/ --
FirstLine Inc., a leading provider of field-based
financial products and services, today announced
that it has adopted Global Field Solutions (GFS)’s
core infrastructure solution for use in its National
Client Support Center and regional branches.
Codenamed “MESA”, GFS’s solution delivers service-
centric applications, integration, and business
process management (BPM) to small- and mid-size
companies in the field service delivery market.
To deliver an effective service-centric solution, GFS
offers a comprehensive suite of integrated tools,
and a delivery model that changes the way field-
based product and support services are provided.
Through its development of enabling software,
integration of business process management,
wireless connectivity, and a web-based offering,
GFS is positioned to provide a full scope of
management and reporting services over the
Internet.
"GFS’s integrated solution gives us a better view of
how we deliver products and services to our
clients,” said Joel Nuss, Vice-President of
Operations for FirstLine. "MESA will allow us to
automate and optimize many of our current
scheduling and notification processes, ensuring
that we deliver quality services to our clients while
meeting our SLAs. Our current and prospective
clients are excited about how MESA will help us
help them, and how it will enable them to help
themselves.'
About FirstLine, Inc
FirstLine is a leading provider of field-based
financial products and services, including ATM
sales, project management, cash replenishment,
deposit pulls, FirstLine® maintenance, hardware
maintenance, cash management, and courier and
support services. With more than 100 years of
combined management experience and over 2,000
customer sites in 22 states, FirstLine is the
specialist in the industry. More information on
FirstLine is available on the company's web site at
http://www.firstlineinc.com .
About Global Field Solutions, LLC
GFS is a professional software development
company specializing in enterprise-class solutions
for the field service delivery market. GFS’s MESA
product enables its clients to implement and deliver
products and services to their customers in a rapid
and efficient manner through automated task
scheduling and process-driven notifications. This
enterprise-level software solution supports multi-
channel customer service, wireless connectivity,
scheduling for field resources, order, ticket, and
route management, and interfaces with other
systems (e.g., accounting, time/attendance, GIS/
GPS, etc.). For more information on GFS, visit
http://www.gotgfs.com .
Editorial Contact:
Francie Graham
FirstLine, Inc
2200 Sunrise Blvd, Suite 175
Gold River, CA 95670
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Wausau Financial Systems Announces Expanded Fraud Detection and Exporting Capabilities in Enhanced Third Generation Corporate Capture Solution
Mosinee, WI – 4/27/06 – To provide even
greater fraud detection capabilities in its industry-
leading corporate capture technology, Wausau
Financial Systems today released its
DigitalDeposit™ 2.1 corporate capture solution,
with a successful beta installation at St. Louis Bank.
The top-rated fraud detection and oversight
enhancements with the DigitalDeposit™ 2.1
Transaction Center provide greater control for a
financial institution in detecting duplicate suspects,
operator corrections, re-scanned items and high
risk deposits. The expanded fraud detection
capabilities include flexibility for the financial
institution in setting fraud control levels for their
customers, allowing for lower risk tolerance with
new corporate customers. In addition, financial
institutions can selectively review, based on the
customer’s risk profile, instances in which the
corporate client increased the amount of a check as
compared to what was read by automatic
recognition.
The enhanced Wausau DigitalDeposit™ 2.1 solution
also provides remote corporate clients the ability to
export images and data more effectively within
their local network environments and incorporates
image usability checks within the client application,
further ensuring the quality of data and images
sent for processing. With DigitalDeposit™2.1, a
financial institution can offer commercial customers
both remote check deposit and payment capture
solutions.
“St. Louis Bank is committed to realizing the
efficiencies that a remote corporate capture
solution offers, and Wausau’s enhanced
DigitalDeposit™ offering provides us with the
strongest fraud protection in the industry,” Kim
Palmer, Chief Operations Officer for St. Louis Bank,
stated. “The new Wausau solution also provides
more assurances for our clients in the quality of
their data and images for their transaction
processing.”
“Wausau continues to offer leading proven solutions
for our clients in the corporate capture arena,”
Nancy Langer, President - Payment Solutions for
Wausau Financial Systems, explained. “The
enhanced fraud detection capabilities for our
DigitalDeposit™ solution further strengthen our
resolve to assure our clients’ success as they
expand their corporate capture offerings. With the
solution’s maturity and wide deployment, this
third-generation offering includes many new
features driven by customer feedback.”
About St. Louis Bank
St. Louis Bank is a newly established, full-service
community bank serving the greater St. Louis
metropolitan area. While St. Louis Bank is new, its
employees have significant banking expertise
serving the area with over 400 years of combined
banking experience. St. Louis Bank serves the
growing middle and smaller markets by combining
the local decision making authority of a community
bank with the sophisticated infrastructure and
cutting-edge technology of larger banks. Find more
information about St. Louis Bank at
http://stlouisbank.com.
About Wausau Financial Systems
Wausau Financial Systems is a premier provider of
payment and remittance processing solutions.
Wausau serves businesses of all types to develop
strategies that move money faster. With its
products, services and consulting, Wausau works
with customers to speed check processing,
electronic presentment, ACH payments, transaction
processing, distributed capture and enterprise
content management. Wausau’s innovative
solutions provide results for a wide range of
organizations including financial institutions,
insurance companies, utilities, retail businesses and
governmental agencies. Find more information
about Wausau at http://www.wausaufs.com
If you have any questions, please contact your
Wausau Associate Reseller Account Manager:
Allen Buckley, East Image and Item Processing
Specialist PH (866) 267-2890 CELL (866) 267-2891
Abuckley@wausaufs.com
Jill Lobitz-Kong, WFS ARG Tactical Administration of
Sales -Eastern US (763) 502-0097
Laurie Falz, WFS ARG Tactical Administration of
Sales - Western US (763) 571-9285
WFS Associate Reseller Group
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Migration to APTRA™ and Windows® XP
The issue of OS/2 discontinuation and migration to
a Windows environment has been around for some
time now and the industry as a whole has made
excellent progress in making the transition. Many
financial institutions are now realizing the benefits
of a Windows based ATM network, including cost
reductions, revenue generation opportunities and
increased consumer satisfaction. However, some
are yet to start down the path of migration for a
variety of reasons. NCR has made every effort to
accommodate our customers’ business needs
during this migration period and there has been a
great deal of flexibility in helping customers with
migration strategies. However, external influences
now mean that the date of the last OS/2 ATM
shipment must be fixed at June 2006.
The European Union has passed the Restriction on
Hazardous Substance (RoHS) directive which comes
into effect in July 2006. This directive is designed to
protect the environment from the disposal of a
number of hazardous substances including lead
based solder.
Although this particular directive affects only
member countries of the European Union, many
other countries including those in the Americas and
Asia Pacific regions are actively working towards
their own equivalent regulations.
As a result of this directive NCR will have to cease
production of the Pele II ATM PC core in June 2006.
NCR’s OS/2 and Windows NT based ATMs are
reliant upon the Pele II core and thus NCR must also
cease the supply of all OS/2 and Windows NT based
software at this time.
NCR will continue to endeavour to assist any
institution affected by this discontinuation in their
migration to a Windows platform.
Microsoft® and Windows
NCR partners with Microsoft on a global level to
ensure that our customers benefit from the best
technology choices and offer the greatest possible
longevity for our self-service software.
Having collaborated with Microsoft on product
roadmaps NCR decided that Windows XP was the
solution best placed to satisfy our customers’
needs and to protect them from additional
operating system churn. Consequently NCR moved
directly from Windows NT to XP bypassing Windows
2000. As a result our customers have faced less
disruption and greater stability.
Microsoft roadmaps currently show support for XP
to at least the end of 2011.
Making the Most of Your Migration
The need to migrate from OS/2 to a Windows
platform is clear. However, this doesn’t have to be
change for change’s sake. Migration to Windows
and APTRA can provide substantial benefits to you
and your customers by maximizing the use of your
ATM network. Here are some good reasons for
making the move.
Security
Whilst viruses, trojans and worms continue to be a
threat to ATMs, these are traditional threats and
represent only a single side of an evolving multi-
faceted threat.
Emerging threats are termed ‘unknown threats’ by
the IT industry and include zero-day attacks, code
exploitation and even attacks on security software
agents.
Attacks from internal threats now outnumber
external attacks. These can occur from seemingly
benign actions such as the distribution of an
inappropriately tested patch bringing an ATM down
or a malicious act by an authorized person.
Further to any threats which the ATM may face,
regulatory compliance with security standards (e.g.
Sarbanes-Oxley, PCI, local banking regulations) is
also an imminent challenge.
Building on the success of APTRA Security NCR has
developed a unique solution for ATM security,
Solidcore for APTRA, which will provide not only
next generation software security but also a single
approach to IT control and regulatory compliance.
NCR is also the only self-service vendor to be
working closely with Microsoft in Active Directory
so that customers can benefit from industry best
practice guidelines.
Future Proofing
To take advantage of advances in technology and
protect against obsolescence, migration to Windows
is essential. For example, intelligent ‘no envelope’
deposit is only available with Windows. New
peripherals such as graphics, sound, and network
cards are designed specifically for Windows.
Windows is also ideal for using web-based
technologies such as web services which allow the
ATM to re-use services delivered across the web to
other channels. A number of customers are already
using this technology to deliver new functionality
such as airline ticket booking and delivering
statement information.
Development Costs and Effort
As older technology approaches the end of its
useful life, the number of skilled engineers
available to develop and support that technology
decreases and consequently their cost increases.
Windows is a new and vibrant technology with a
huge pool of skilled resources available now and
into the future. One bank that has already migrated
to Windows reported this as being one of the main
reasons for making Windows their enterprise-wide
choice.
New Tools and Technologies
As the world’s most popular operating system and
with millions of dollars of R&D behind it, Windows
will continue to benefit from advances in tools and
technologies. C# and the .NET environment are two
examples of recent innovations that have made
Windows a more productive and useful
environment. According to customer testimonials,
the latest development tools for Windows can
reduce the amount of coding required by up to
20%, problem analysis and fix cycles can be
reduced from days to minutes.
Multi-Vendor
If you have more than one vendor’s ATMs in your
network or there is the possibility that this may
happen in the future, through mergers or
acquisitions, then multi-vendor software will be
important to you. Having multiple applications in
your ATM network increases costs and time-to-
market. Multi-vendor software is the solution and
this is only available through Windows and CEN-
XFS.
Channel Integration
There are many different ways in which you can
offer services to your customers. Today they can
bank over the Internet, telephone, ATM, or at the
branch. According to industry analyst Celent (A
Roadmap to Multi-Channel Integration, 2005),
between 10% and 25% of IT and operations costs
can be saved by integrating these channels
together at an enterprise level. Also by offering a
consistent service offering across all channels you
can increase customer satisfaction and strengthen
your brand. A key enabling technology in channel
integration is IFX (International Financial eXchange).
IFX is a messaging standard that allows each of the
financial channels to communicate with your
enterprise systems in a consistent manner. NCR has
an IFX solution which is integrated with APTRA
Edge. This solution is only available in a Windows
environment.
Advertising and Cross-Selling
The traditional ‘Please Wait’ screens shown whilst
the ATM is busy are the perfect opportunities to
communicate with the ATM user who is, essentially,
a captive audience. In addition, the ATM occupies a
unique position within your services delivery
infrastructure. Only the ATM is frequently used by
both your own customers and the customers of
other institutions. This provides an excellent
opportunity to offer new services to existing
customers and attract brand new customers.
APTRA Promote offers the capability to run
promotional campaigns on your ATMs. These can
feature still images, full motion video, and coupon
printing. Campaigns can be tailored to a specific
location, date or time providing great power and
flexibility. In addition APTRA Promote provides the
capability to advertise third party products and
services to generate revenue. For example, a
European network of approximately 400 ATMs is
generating €1.2M of revenue per annum through
this method.
APTRA Promote helps you make the most of your
ATM channel and it is only available with Windows.
Personalization and Targeted Marketing
APTRA Relate allows you to build upon the services
offered by APTRA Promote by linking into a CRM
system at the back-end. This allows you to target
specific messages to your customers at the ATM for
example, if your customer has just purchased a
new house, they may be ready to purchase home
insurance.
Another exciting feature of APTRA Relate is
personalization. An ATM user can set up and save
their transaction preferences at the ATM including
language, fast-cash amount and receipt options.
Not only does this improve the experience for the
consumer, these preset transaction options actually
reduce the overall transaction time, allowing more
transactions to take place. This is especially helpful
in high volume locations. A large Asian bank
achieved up to 70% savings in transaction times
through their APTRA Relate project.
Moving to Windows with APTRA can reduce your
costs, increase revenue generating opportunities,
and improve customer satisfaction.
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