Site Map - Banking/Financial Services

12/03/2007 - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has offered assistance to financial institutions to protect against instant messaging (IM) troubles.

12/03/2007 - The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act, known simply as Check 21, improves bank efficiency by allowing "substitute checks," including digital images of checks, to be used so that paper checks do not have to be moved from institution to institution. The bank on which the check was drawn then treats the check as a debit instrument, instantly charging the amount against the account. Customers will no longer receive cancelled checks; instead, they'll have to log into their bank accounts to see the image of the cancelled chec

12/03/2007 - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has offered assistance to financial institutions to protect against instant messaging (IM) troubles. The Guidance on Instant Messaging provides risk-management considerations such as how to implement antivirus checks on IM and how to configure firewalls to prevent IM traffic. It also includes technical notes that describe different IM types, and points out that even if users are not allowed to download software, "IM can still be accessed by sending messages directly from a Web browser" such as Internet Explorer. @ More on the FDIC's IM guidance is at SM Online.

12/03/2007 - The Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act, known simply as Check 21, improves bank efficiency by allowing "substitute checks," including digital images of checks, to be used so that paper checks do not have to be moved from institution to institution. The bank on which the check was drawn then treats the check as a debit instrument, instantly charging the amount against the account. Customers will no longer receive cancelled checks; instead, they'll have to log into their bank accounts to see the image of the cancelled check. Unisys has released a list of top-10 risk mitigation techniques for Check 21 risks.

11/28/2007 - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has announced its auditing procedures for ensuring that banks and other financial institutions are in compliance with security measures established under the U.S. Patriot Act. The measures, designed to fight money laundering, focus on a customer identification program through which bank officials verify the identity of customers.

11/28/2007 - A financial services research organization has launched a new initiative to address the phishing problems that have been plaguing the sector. The three-phase project, to be conducted with the collaboration of other industry groups, will first look at technical requirements for counterphishing solutions and consider and test plans. The second phase will be used to implement pilots, assess results, and provide recommendations for the most promising solutions. The third and final phase will be dedicated to implementing these recommendations.

11/27/2007 - A financial services research organization has launched a new initiative to address the phishing problems that have been plaguing the sector. The three-phase project, to be conducted with the collaboration of other industry groups, will first look at technical requirements for counterphishing solutions and consider and test plans. The second phase will be used to implement pilots, assess results, and provide recommendations for the most promising solutions. The third and final phase will be dedicated to implementing these recommendations. 

11/27/2007 - A global anti-money-laundering survey conducted by KPMG suggests that money laundering has captured bank executives' attention because of potential impact on profits. Anti-money-laundering (AML) "has become a key issue for senior management because the possibility of an AML-related failure now poses significant potential reputational risk, both domestically and for banks' international operations," says the report. Attention to AML measures has increased even as the cost of complying with money-laundering regulations has jumped by 61 pe, bankrcent over the past three years, according to the survey, with most of this increase devoted to transaction monitoring and staff training. Two-thirds of the 209 responding banks, representing 41 countries, indicated that they have generated more suspicious activity reports over the last three years. "This can be attributed in part to increased use of electronic monitoring systems," say the report's authors, "suggesting that the marked investment in these tools has proved beneficial; it also confirms the benefits accruing from the increased investment in training confirmed by the survey." Find the 51-page report on SM Online.

11/16/2007 - GAO examined progress made by the financial markets in improving disaster preparedness. Improvements included greater protection of networks from hackers, geographically removed backup facilities, creation of a private network for routing data between broker-dealers and various markets, and the issuance of business continuity guidelines.

11/16/2007 - Fraudsters are using technology to automate the fraud process, and financial institutions must prepare for these challenges.

11/14/2007 - The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has issued guidance to financial institutions about when OCC will cite banks for violations or take other enforcement actions against them to prevent money laundering. @ The guidance is available through SM Online.

11/13/2007 - With identity theft costing Americans billions of dollars each year, financial institutions are under pressure to make account information more secure. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has issued a study of ID theft and account hijacking in which it outlines technological tools and other recommendations designed to mitigate this threat. @ Putting an End to Account-Hijacking Identity Theft is available via SM Online.

11/13/2007 - The financial services industry in Chicago is collaborating with city, state, and federal officials to create a regional group that will work together on disaster recovery plans. The initiative, which others can use as a model, is described in a new report by the U.S. Department of Treasury: Improving Business Continuity in the Financial Services Sector: A Model for Starting Regional Coalitions. @ Visit SM Online or the full report.