BATON ROUGE, La. - Jim Stickley routinely walks into credit unions disguised as an exterminator or fire marshal and walks out with unencrypted data tapes and other goodies that could easily compromise the CU's security, reputation and bottom line. Stickley is chief technology officer and vice president of engineering for...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - Surf's Up and calls are down at Altura Credit Union's member service center, where a homegrown effort has helped move callers off the phone and onto the Internet for routine business. Altura's call center was averaging about 12,000 calls per month from members wanting nothing more than...

MALVERN, Pa. - Talk about traction. In its fifth year, Akcelerant Software has about 100 credit unions using its CollectAnywhere collections management system, a number it says is now growing by five to eight customers a month. A browser-based system on the front end, the CollectAnywhere software uses XML-based integration...

DAYTON, Ohio - Ask Dave Youngerman how many credit unions are using his company's desk-top check scanner and he can only shrug and smile. That's because Panini North America sold more than 40,000 of the My Vision X check-imaging devices last year, frequently through value-added reseller agreements with Unisys, Open...

MADISON, Wis. - University of Wisconsin Credit Union isn't waiting for regulators to tell it to bolster that two-factor authentication system members use to log in at www.uwcu.org. The $800 million CU is the first financial institution to go live with the new Intelligent Authentication system from Corillian, a system...

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Phishing and pharming and other hacks had been dominating the chat at the IT cyber water cooler this year until Oct. 12 rolled around. That day, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) issued its new guidelines on online authentication. While the guidance focused on risk management...

BATON ROUGE, La. - Dozens of credit unions merge every year, and the process of combining hardware, software and people is never exactly the same each time around. Just ask Ken Bordelon and Mark Staid. They're president/CEO and executive vice president of operations, respectively, for E Federal Credit Union in...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A database and negotiating skills have helped the University of Illinois Employees Credit Union save some $20,000 already this year in a new deal with its debit card processor, with more on the way. The $140 million credit union is using the ExpenseMark sourcing and procurement service...