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Thursday, August 30, 2007

Build your busibess by appreciating the customers you already have

Consumer banking is a very competitive industry. Banks battle for market share with advertising, free gifts, lower charges, higher interest rates and more.
So much energy and expense are spent attracting new business. But so little effort is invested in truly appreciating the customers they already have.
For example, have you ever bought a house with a housing loan? After you moved in, did the bank call to ask about your new home, or send you a housewarming gift?
Have you ever purchased a car with a car loan? Did the bank send you a note afterwards to congratulate you on your new car, or send you a friendly coupon for a free car wash and wax?
Do you have a credit card? Does your bank ever call you just to say 'Thank you' for using the card and ask if you are happy with the bank's service?
At a bankers' convention I asked if anyone in the audience of 3,000 routinely called their customers just to say 'Thank you!' The answer, predictably, was 'No'.
The bankers were stunned by their own admission.
'Relax,' I said. 'None of the other bankers here are doing it either…not yet.'
Most banking customers have accounts at more than one bank. You probably do too.
What would it take to get you to consolidate most of your banking activity to one bank? A free gift, slightly lower charges, or a higher rate of interest?
Not likely. Those incentives exist today and you still have multiple banking accounts.
But if one bank started genuinely thanking you, calling you, truly listening to your thoughts and suggestions about their banking service, would you be more inclined to rely on that bank in the future? to use them again and again? to migrate your accounts to that one bank for more comprehensive service?
What would it cost the bank to make those telephone calls to you? Not much. What might it earn the bank? A lot.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Bankruptcy?

Why Avoid Bankruptcy?

There was a time when bankruptcy was considered a stigma. Filing for bankruptcy was considered shameful, an admission that one could not manage one's personal finances.Today, the stigma appears to have lifted. In fact, rampant credit card debt has driven many Americans to choose the bankruptcy route -- more than 1.8 million bankruptcy petitions were filed during the 2005 calendar year.

What Is Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy was created to protect the financial health of the jobless and the infirm by eliminating high levels of debt. There are two ways to file for bankruptcy, each with its own rules. The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 (Bankruptcy Reform Act), made many changes in bankruptcy law.Under a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing, many debts are eliminated, but the filer must liquidate personal assets to pay down some of the debt. Personal property is sold by a bankruptcy trustee, who then uses the proceeds to pay creditors. Some assets are exempt if they are considered necessary to support the filer and any dependents, but state and federal laws vary widely. In general, a percentage of home equity and disability benefits are exempt, and Chapter 7 filers may be allowed to keep any money or property they obtain after filing. Chapter 7 bankruptcy can be filed once every eight years.A Chapter 13 filing does not erase debt. Rather, it requires the filer to set up a repayment plan, typically over a three- to five-year period, in exchange for keeping personal assets. The Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 states that anyone with income above the state median will have to file for Chapter 13 and pay back at least a portion of their debts. In general, homes will only be protected if owned for at least 40 months. Chapter 13 bankruptcy can only be filed once every two years.Certain debts cannot be erased under any bankruptcy filing, including alimony, child support, property settlements, criminal judgements and fines, student loans, and most taxes. In addition, a bankruptcy filing will not allow you to keep property that secures a loan, such as an automobile or home, unless you repay the loan.


Who Should File?
In general, filing for bankruptcy should be avoided. Filing, however, may help to begin a financial recovery if:
You cannot meet debt obligations on current income.
Attempts to negotiate payments with creditors have failed.
Your ratio of debt to annual income is 40% or more.
Previous attempts to reduce debt have failed, particularly with the help of a credit counselor or debt reduction plan.
You have charge-offs on your credit history. Charge-offs appear when you have debts that are more than 250 days past due that are written off by your creditors for accounting purposes. A series of charge-offs and bankruptcy are both black marks on your credit report, but a bankruptcy filing demonstrates that you have at least dealt with the debt.

Cash in the Bank

A savings account is a savings account, right? Wrong. Savings accounts, CDs, and other cash investments can be great choices for meeting more immediate goals, since your money is safe and easily accessible. But they can vary widely in interest rates, fees, service charges, and potential penalties. So it’s smart to shop around for an account that not only keeps your money secure — but also helps it grow. Take interest in your interestIt’s no secret that the higher the interest rate, the more the account earns. But interest can be calculated in two ways — simple or compound. An account paying simple interest means you’ll only earn interest on the principal, or the amount you put into the account. But an account paying compound interest will pay interest on your interest, too — helping your account grow faster. Another thing to look for is whether you’re charged any fees or commissions for opening an account or keeping it open, since that could take a big bite out of your earnings.

Climbing to your goalsLaddering, or staggering the maturity dates of CDs can give you extra flexibility and allows you to take advantage of higher rates usually offered on longer term CDs. Let’s say you have $7,500 to invest and you are interested in a CD with a three-year term. When laddering, you actually divide your principle across multiple CDs with varying maturity dates. You might buy one $2,500 CD maturing in one year, another maturing in two years and one more maturing in three years. When the first CD matures, you could renew it into the longest term of your ladder, in this case, three years. As each CD comes due, you can easily reinvest it into the longer term. Once your ladder is established, you will have a CD maturing every year, while earning the higher rate of a longer term CD. The good, the bad, and the unexpectedLife is full of the unexpected. That’s why most experts say you should set aside three to six months’ worth of income in an easily accessible, highly liquid account that you can tap when you have unforeseen expenses.
It takes less than five minutes to ladder CDs online with ING DIRECT! Great rateGuaranteed return No market risk

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Intelligent Banking Solutions develops, markets, services and supports CARM-Pro and its companion products to assist financial institutions in the aut

IBM today announced new solutions to allow financial services and banking customers to centralize operations and reduce overhead costs. The new IBM Systems Solutions for Branch Banking leverages IBM's growing ecosystem of partners, and also adds another option to the IBM Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure solution portfolio. Systems Solutions for Branch Banking is designed to serve as a secure and stable platform for branch growth, as banks continue to evolve and redevelop their traditional network of branch sites, seeking to transform them into outlets for personalized selling and highly-focused service. "IBM brings significant value to the table -- expertise from other engagements and a deep understanding for our support needs," said Luis Francisco Rivas Dueñas, Chief Information Officer of Banco de la República, the Central Bank of Colombia. "We can capitalize on IBM's expertise to further collapse multiple tiers of our computing operations into a more efficient, less complex infrastructure. This solution includes tailored features such extra security and networking applications that meet our specific needs as a financial institution." Designed specifically for the banking industry, the new Systems Solutions for Branch Banking offers banking customers a pre-configured, pre-tested, scalable and easy to maintain platform that can be used to consolidate branch infrastructure. The new banking solutions -- built on powerful Intel Xeon-based IBM BladeCenter and xSeries platforms -- include software, networking and security features so that administrators can monitor operations and centrally deploy software to branch locations. Systems Solutions for Branch Banking provides functions and services that can be used with in-branch applications, such as wireless networking, local storage backup and restore, and management of automated teller machines (ATMs). "The trend in the financial services and banking markets is towards flexible and resilient infrastructures to ease the manageability of a company's overall operations and free more IT dollars for use developing client-facing products and services," said Mark Greene, general manager, IBM Global Banking Industry. "With today's announcement of IBM's Systems Solutions for Branch Banking, IBM is providing financial customers with solutions to realize a competitive advantage in this fast-paced market." Systems Solutions for Branch Banking will help retail banks ensure the branch channel remains a key contributor of business growth in the future even with the proliferation of remote channels such as internet and telephone banking. The new banking solutions will allow retail banking networks to expand while maintaining a high quality of service for their customers. Retail banks will be able to quickly access, maintain, and analyze customer data in branch offices without having to retrieve data across the network. The offering also includes IBM Director software for central office management of the infrastructure and software deployment. Systems Solutions for Branch Banking includes a wide variety of solution options:
Using VMware virtual infrastructure, the computing platform can support several base operating systems, including versions of Windows and Linux, on a single blade server.
Provisioning systems such as Altiris Deployment Solution.
Datacom Systems has recently made available an IBM BladeCenter version of their video surveillance system. New IBM Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure solution with VMware and ClearCubeIBM is also unveiling the next solution in its Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure portfolio with BladeCenter, VMware and ClearCube. This new offering is ideal for bank branches and credit institutions and is part of IBM's new banking solution. This new IBM hosted client solution is based on VMware virtual infrastructure software to host multiple users of fully functional desktop environments on a single blade within IBM BladeCenter and leverages ClearCube client access technologies, which increases efficiencies such as utilization of computing resources and quicker deployment of new users. Users connect to their desktop environments using ClearCube Grid Center software which dynamically allocates them to the appropriate computing resource. IT administrators can manage the blades through ClearCube Control Center, which provides health status and automated alerts through graphically configured agents. IBM introduced its first Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure offering last month; a pre-integrated hosted client solution based on VMware virtual infrastructure software and leveraging Citrix client access technologies. IBM Global Services supportIBM Systems Solutions for Branch Banking and IBM Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure will be delivered by IBM Global Services (IGS) and select IBM Business Partners. IGS is currently enrolling customers for pilot implementations. IBM Global Services has skills and capabilities to help clients take advantage of virtualization and hosted client architectures to create a more secure and cost effective client infrastructure. Leveraging vast experience in delivering hosted client solutions, IGS professionals can help clients evaluate existing applications, images, user profiles and networks to plan, design, implement and manage their Virtualized Hosted Client Infrastructure. IBM can provide Systems Solutions for Branch Banking Proof of Concept services, including hardware, software, and services to plan, design and install a limited branch proof of concept. About IBMIBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key IBM Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information about IBM, visit www.ibm.com. IBM and BladeCenter are trademarks of the International Business Machines Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. For a complete list of IBM Trademarks, see www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml. All statements regarding IBM's future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.

Intelligent Banking Solutions

Intelligent Banking Solutions develops, markets, services and supports CARM-Pro and its companion products to assist financial institutions in the automation of debt collection on delinquent accounts, while providing management a methodology to remain compliant with internal and external rules, policies and regulations regarding the collection of delinquent accounts and special assets.
Today, more than ever before, financial institutions need an integrated application solution that provides quality service to existing consumer credit and deposit customers, while enabling the institution to expand its services to new commercial customers.
Since 1989, IBS has been delivering real debt management and collection solutions to the financial industry. A New Hampshire-based company, today we have clients in 46 states and the District of Columbia. Our clients get state-of-the-art solutions configured and installed by our trained professionals, to meet your specific needs.
CARM-Pro, available as both a Windows and browser solution, streamlines the collection process and automates workflow. Institutional risk is reduced by using standard messages, letters and ticklers. Crystal-clear debtor documentation allows monitoring and tracking, features not previously available with traditional systems.
The IBS solution works in either data center or in-house environments, from single to multiple-core processing vendors. It will enhance documentation and reporting for all delinquent receivables: installment, mortgage, or commercial loans, credit cards - even negative balance deposit accounts.

HSBC offers New Banking Solutions for NRIs

With an increase in banking transactions between India and the US, HSBC Bank unveils new breakthrough solutions for Non resident Indians (NRIs) to smoothen out banking transactions for them.
In addition to providing a variety of US and Indian deposits, mortgage and investment products, the new products also include a series of benefits for NRIs to make cross-border transaction easier.
HSBC Bank (USA) will be providing assistance to NRIs in the US in opening account with the bank’s India unit.
At present, HSBC has a large customer base including 160,000 NRI customers between India and the US. New solutions devised by HSBC will help the NRIs in banking transactions in both the countries, says Manasije Mishra, Senior Vice President and Head NRI Services, Personal Financial Services, HSBC India.
The list of benefits for NRIs will take several significant things into account. Important of all will be assistance in free remittances to HSBC India from the US at low exchange rates by US dollar checks, free remittances from the US to India with the help of Internet banking where customers banking in both the branches can remit money to their NRI accounts held with HSBC India conveniently and fastly.
The bank is also considering coming up with another NRI center in Fremont, California to expand its New York NRI office. Currently, it is running over 450 branches in the US. Of this, it has 400 are in New York. With 47 branches, the bank is running good business in India as well.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Branch Renewal Solutions

The branch is back. Financial institutions are reinvesting in their branch infrastructure to provide a rich customer experience and retain or gain competitive advantage.

Unisys provides a comprehensive, end-to-end approach to update and enhance an institution’s branch systems. Our services are available under a managed services business approach for global delivery.

Our Branch Renewal solutions and services include...
Consulting services
Infrastructure performance assessments
Systems and network design
Network implementation and support
Security assessments & services
Managed infrastructure services
Leading teller and platform solutions
Advanced document and check imaging systems
Using our 3D Visible Enterprise methodology, our branch renewal solutions can be implemented quickly and with reduced risk, so you can improve operational expenditures and efficiencies — immediately.

Benefits of Branch Renewal
Unisys Branch Renewal solutions help you...
Upgrade teller systems for greater automation – including branch image capture
Streamline branch functions and enable straight-through-processing to reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction
Eliminate branch network redundancy and upgrade your IT infrastructure
Improve information at the point of customer contact, enabling tellers to deliver a personalized experience and cross-sell, up-sell
Increase branch personnel productivity
Enhance customer self-service capabilities
Reduce technology and infrastructure support costs

Sales and Service Effectiveness

To help banks grow their top-line, Unisys has solutions — mapped to the customer lifecycle — to improve sales and service effectiveness and enhance customer profitability.

Unisys holistic approach spans all delivery channels and customer touch points, and incorporates a framework of 3D Blueprints and solution components to help jump-start the engagement. It provides traceability between your business strategy, business processes, applications and infrastructure so you can achieve the desired results more quickly. Our offerings include strategy and process improvement, systems integration, and managed services.
By improving business processes and harnessing the power of business intelligence, we can help you effectively acquire, retain, grow and serve your customers, increasing lifetime value and profitability.

Unisys Sales and Service Effectiveness solutions can...
Segment customers based on profitability
Improve acquisition through effective, integrated customer management
Increase wallet share through cross-sell
Prevent sales leakage through streamlined customer acquisition
Increase customer loyalty through differentiated customer service
Leverage customer complaints resolution to increase sales and customer loyalty and reduce defection
Leverage collections to optimize customer profitability

Financial Banking Solutions

With merger and acquisition frenzy, increased competition, shrinking margins and new regulatory requirements, banks today must rethink and retool their retail strategies. Focusing on effective channel and customer management, banks are looking for ways to improve operational efficiency while growing their top-line.
To assist with this retail transformation, Unisys has solutions to help banks enhance revenue, compete more effectively and reduce costs.
We can transform your retail delivery models
Channel RenewalDeliver a rich customer experience regardless of channel. Rethink strategy and processes. Upgrade technology applications. Retool supporting infrastructure for new ways of operating.
Sales & Service EffectivenessImproving business processes to increase top-line revenue requires a holistic strategy-through-technology approach that spans all delivery channels to help you retain, grow and serve customers.
With 3D Visible Enterprise, we can help you model the desired state of your retail delivery strategy, envision a fully-architected business solution, and quantify ROI — before you spend a single technology dollar.
Improve your operational efficiency while you grow your top-line. Contact Unisys today.
Bank M+A Visibility across the organization is a key to successful post-merger integration. Find out why.
Branch Renewal Technology, people and processes can create a customer-focused profit center.
Sovereign Turns to Unisys for CRM This Unisys multi-channel CRM solution linked 600 branches in 7 states.
Is it right for your business?
function strPathContact(p)
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contactPagePath = 'http://www.app3.unisys.com/ContactUs/ContactUS.asp?strPath=' + p
contactpage = window.open(contactPagePath,'contact','toolbar=false,scrollbars=yes,location=false,resizable=no,status=true, screenX=10,screenY=10,width=517,height=517');
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Contact Unisys

KASTLE - Secure Banking Solutions

3i Infotech, with its rich domain expertise in the banking and financial services sector, has a proven track record in delivering optimized value propositions to customers in this space across the globe.
KASTLE, our secure banking solutions suite, comprises an extensive range of enterprise banking products that cater to the varied operations and departments of banks and other financial services organizations. This gives our customers a cost-effective option to go for multiple solutions that can be integrated with each other - from a single vendor.
The KASTLE product suite consists of:
KASTLE Core Banking: KASTLE Core Banking (formerly NEWTON) provides a wide range of banking operations. It allows you to offer highest level of customer service to your clients. It can be configured to run in both centralized as well as distributed environments. More>>
KASTLE Treasury: KASTLE Treasury (formerly KASTLE) is an integrated treasury management solution covering key markets such as Foreign Exchange, Money, and Equity, and their related derivative instruments. More>>
KASTLE Asset Liability Management: KASTLE Asset Liability Management (formerly PINNACLE) provides analytical tools that enable active asset liability management to ensure they stay balanced, maximize profitability, thus providing prudent capital adequacy. More>>
KASTLE Risk Management: KASTLE Risk Management (formerly Riskfree) allows you to take premeditated decisions pertaining to current risk exposures, while optimizing profits and minimizing costly errors due to lack of understanding of risk issues. More>>
KASTLE Universal Lending: 3i Infotech offers cutting edge front office and back office retail banking software solutions through KASTLE Universal Lending (formerly TRITON), to satisfy the multiple needs of modern-day retail and corporate lending institutions. More>>
KASTLE Factoring: KASTLE Factoring (formerly TANGIBLE) enables factoring institutions to help their clients enhance the velocity of their investment by unlocking the potential in open account trade receivables. More>>
KASTLE Anti Money Laundering: KASTLE Anti Money Laundering encompasses detection, monitoring and investigation. It offers robust analytics in the Know Your Customer (KYC) and Transaction Analysis segments. More>>
KASTLE Wealth Management: KASTLE Wealth Management (formerly KASTLE IMS) caters to each cycle in investment management. It covers functions ranging from client acquisition, fund inflows, funds deployment, fund management, to their related activities. More>>

Monday, June 25, 2007

Investment Management Solutions for Working Capital

Managing your working capital and liquidity needs is an essential component in maximizing your earnings, minimizing your interest expense and avoiding the difficult issues that can arise from liquidity problems.
PNC offers a comprehensive selection of solutions designed to help you unlock the full value of your cash balances and short-term investments without the demands of day-by-day management. Turn to PNC and maintain the flexibility you need to run your business efficiently while your treasury staff is freed up to focus on other key priorities.
Our convenient liquidity solutions allow you to access a range of investment options to meet your short-term cash management needs - all with the ease you've come to expect from PNC.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Term loan and foreign exchange line program

National Bank and Investissement Québec have teamed up to offer a comprehensive solution* to export companies that want to improve their productivity and, by extension, their competitiveness abroad.
Under the terms of this agreement, you can finance up to 100% of equipment, machinery, technology and all other expenses related to your productivity project.
In addition, to help you better manage your profit margin and deal with unforeseen situations, you can take advantage of a foreign exchange line guaranteed by Investissement Québec that protects you against exchange rate fluctuations.
Investissement Québec is a government agency with a mandate to contribute to the development of investment projects in every region of Quebec. It offers financial solutions to businesses wishing to improve growth opportunities through a variety of means including exports and productivity enhancement.
For details, or to find out if you qualify, please contact the Commercial Banking Manager or the Manager International Trade in your region.
*Subject to certain applicable terms and conditions, in particular those of Investissement Québec's Business Financing Program.

Business Review

One of the most important areas of implementing a complex software application such as Sovereign is in the area of business requirements. It is necessary for us to fully understand these business requirements in order to efficiently configure the software to provide the desired processing. This configuration is carried out through parameter configuration and also by (where necessary) enhancing existing code.
Sovereign is a very powerful and flexible system and we will engage with the client to understand the business drivers and to tailor the system to fulfil those requirements in the most cost-effective way.
Once the business requirements have been outlined and documented, then the necessary code enhancements can be estimated and carried out. These enhancements are then tested and documented by Finzsoft Solutions prior to delivery to the client.

Banking and Capital Market

The Financial Services industry is being “flattened” under the influence of several forces. Technology is leveling the playing field by creating disruptive business models. Increasing consumer sophistication is forcing the pace of business innovation. Armies of people entering the global talent and consumer markets are creating vast new opportunities across the financial supply chain. The plummeting cost of information processing is leading to an information glut. Clearly, it is not business as usual. To succeed in this flat world , companies must shift operational priorities so they can focus on:
Being the China Price, instead of dreading it or simply reacting to it
Building loyalty through faster innovation, because service quality is just a hygiene factor
Making money from information, instead of spending money on it
Winning in the turns, instead of limiting themselves to winning in the straightway Infosys’ visioning and execution capabilities are backed by business, domain, technology and change management expertise to help you win in the flat world. Gartner, Inc., in a recent report, named Infosys among the top 6 largest IT companies catering to the financial services sector, and among the top 3 in terms of growth rate.

Loan insurance

Getting financing is one of the most important steps in growing your business. But have you considered limiting the risks that could jeopardize your company’s existence? You need to protect your business by making sure you can still meet your obligations in case any of the people who are essential to your business operations become disabled, are faced with a critical illness or die.

Financial and Banking Software Solution

All finance organisations are unique.All finance organisations have common ground. Sovereign Finance and Banking software brings a new solution to this challenge.
All finance organisations are unique – Sovereign Finance and Banking software utilises a combination of parameters, a wide range of product capability and customisation options to fit your niche.
All finance organisations have common ground – Sovereign Finance and Banking software is not uniquely finance company, bank, credit union or consumer focused.
Finzsoft Solutions have built the Sovereign Finance and Banking software to support a wide range of lending structures, savings, deposit, current account and banking transactions.

Universal Banking solution

The universal banking solution from Infosys, empowers banks to transform their business leveraging agile new generation technologies. This modular solution addresses the core banking, treasury, wealth management, consumer and corporate e-banking, mobile banking and web based cash management requirements of retail, corporate and universal banks worldwide.
Finacle has been architected out of years of experience with global banks and offers several powerful and differentiating features making it one of the most comprehensive, flexible and scalable solutions in its class.