We've got big things happening at Continuity this week! First up, moving this blog to its new home on our newly launched revamped website!
Please stop by and let us know what you think of our new online digs!
We've moved!
Compliance Comic #3: Securing the Riches
A little Friday Fun
for banking Compliance officers and CEOs
(You can click on the comic strip to see the original in a larger size.)
Anti-Virus Policy: Free Policy Tuesday
This week's free banking policy is an Anti-Virus policy. The purpose of the Anti-Virus Policy is to prevent infection of [Institution] computers and computer systems by computer viruses and other malicious code. This policy is intended to prevent major and widespread damage to user applications, files, and hardware.
Every Tuesday, Continuity Engine releases a free banking policy for use by community banks and credit unions across America. These policies are made available through Creative Commons licensing so that banks and credit unions may freely remix and reuse the content to suit their individual financial institution's needs. When we release a new policy, the previous week's policy is archived on our community where it is always available for free to community members. In case you were wondering, membership in our community is always free for credit union folks and community bankers.
Please remember that this policy is only available for free on our website through September 15, 2009. If you are looking for a particular policy that you would like us to feature on a future Free Policy Tuesday, please let us know in the comments!
Control TV Now Has Its Own Blog
We've moved Control Tv to it's own unique spot on our website. Please hop on over to controltv.continuity.net to see our latest episode!
This week we discussed ways that financial institutions can go green. Andy Greenawalt told the story of Control's creation & explained what Control does for community financial institutions.
The Compliance Consultant: Bankers Talk #2
Thought we'd share a little Friday Fun
for banking Compliance officers and CEOs
(You can click on the comic strip to see the original in a larger size.)
ACH policy - Free Policy Tuesday
This week's free banking policy is an ACH policy. The purpose of the ACH Policy is to comply with all ACH rules, regulations and other related requirements. The policy specifically defines the Institution’s intentions regarding the requirements under ACH Rules, The Green Book, Federal Regulation E, and Uniform Commercial Code Article 4A which permits alternative handling based upon individual financial institution policies and procedures.
Every Tuesday, Continuity Engine releases a free banking policy for use by community banks and credit unions across America. These policies are made available through Creative Commons licensing so that banks and credit unions may freely remix and reuse the content to suit their individual financial institution's needs. When we release a new policy, the previous week's policy is archived on our community where it is always available for free to community members. In case you were wondering, membership in our community is always free for credit union folks and community bankers.
Please remember that this policy is only available for free on our website through September 8, 2009. If you are looking for a particular policy that you would like us to feature on a future Free Policy Tuesday, please let us know in the comments!
Control TV Episode #6: Personal Finance Managers
Episode #6 - August 28, 2009
Episode length: 19 minutes, 58 seconds
View on Viddler
Intro:
- Peter Glyman Co-Founder of Geezeo joins us as our first guest
- Find your hosts on Twitter: @SonyaJMills and @JimKisch
and our guest @pglyman from @geezeo
- www.continuity.net - Join Community and ask your banking peers
- Ask the Expert forums (on Community):
- Andy Greenawalt [Information security]
- Jim Kisch [Compliance and Risk Management]
- Jesse Torres [Social Media Best Practices]
- Karen Licker [Social Media Best Practices]
- LinkedIn: Compliance Support Group
- Twitter: @CE_Community and/or #ControlTv
Personal Finance Managers (PFM)
- Consumers demanding a better way to manage finances on the web
- PFMs enable consumers to track and manage their money, often aggregating multiple institutions in a single view (Wikipedia)
- 3rd party products frequently lead consumers to other products/better rates
- community FIs become commodity/rate = lost relationship value
Geezeo PFM suite:
- licensed to community FIs and integrated with their online banking platform
- no reason for consumer to look elsewhere
- Better than 3rd party PFM because it's tied to live data
- transactions are accurate
- alerts more robust
- can pull in outside assets (401k, etc) for a more complete financial picture
- Community
- consumers ask financial questions
- answers can be rated by community
- moderation and blacklisted terms
- enables more FI connection with consumers
- EXPERTS: handpicked and screened by the FI
- bio with ability for links to business site, LinkedIn and/or Twitter profiles
- Real Estate expert, small business owner, bankers, etc
- Moves the FI back inot position of trusted advisor for all things financial
- Community members providing lots of help earn credibility and become Community Experts (encourages community activity
- PFM suite ties together PFM and Community, bringing consumers a trusted banking relationship with the technology they crave for ease of financial management
- Working on a Mobile app for Stanford Federal Credit Union that can be replicated for other clients
FreePolicyTuesday:
Completely free on www.continuity.net for 1 week. All past policies are noted and archived on our free community.
- Wire Transfer Policy
- Setember 1st will be ACH policy
Closing Comments:
- interested in seeing the show live?
- please leave any feedback in the comments section
The Compliance Consultant: Bankers Talk #1
Thought we'd share a little Friday Fun
for banking Compliance officers and CEOs
Wire Transfer Policy - Free Policy Tuesday
This week's free banking policy, created by Jim Kisch, is a wire transfer policy. The purpose of the Wire Transfer Policy is to establish guidelines for the movement of funds by wire transfer to and from [Institution] accounts.
Every Tuesday, Continuity Engine releases a free banking policy for use by community banks and credit unions across America. These policies are made available through Creative Commons licensing so that banks and credit unions may freely remix and reuse the content to suit their individual financial institution's needs. When we release a new policy, the previous week's policy is archived on our community where it is always available for free to community members. In case you were wondering, membership in our community is always free for credit union folks and community bankers.
Please remember that this policy is only available for free on our website through September 1, 2009. If you are looking for a particular policy that you would like us to feature on a future Free Policy Tuesday, please let us know in the comments!
Control TV Episode #5: ITI software group, Pandemic, Vendor Management
Episode #5 - August 21, 2009
Episode length: 11 minutes, 53 seconds
View on Viddler
Intro:
- We've got our first live studio audience
- Find your hosts on Twitter: @SonyaJMills and @JimKisch
- New Client shout-out: Linda and Jason at Citizens Bank of New Ulm
- www.continuity.net - Join Community and ask your banking peers
- Ask the Expert forums (on Community):
- Andy Greenawalt [Information security]
- Jim Kisch [Compliance and Risk Management]
- Jesse Torres [Social Media Best Practices]
- Karen Licker [Social Media Best Practices]
- LinkedIn: Compliance Support Group
- Twitter: @CE_Community and/or #ControlTv
What's Happening in the Forums?
The Uniti-East group has been using Control's community since last fall and we're looking forward to attending their annual conference in September. Recently members of the midwest Uniforum group and the Mid-South ITI User Group.
Additionally, we've got a Jack Henry user group and a Fiserv PCS user group if you use that software and are looking for others to talk about issues within your operations and data centers, those groups are a great resource. If you use a different vendor for your banking software and are interested in setting up a group on our community, please drop us a note and we'll get you set up!
Compliance Challenge of the Week:
Pandemic Planning and Response: Financial institutions need to be prepared for a pandemic incident. Prepare for up to 50% staff absences for periods of 2-3 weeks at the height of the pandemic. Implement vital testing, training, preparation and communication procedures.
Who: Sr. Management, HR, operations, compliance, IT, legal
How Often: quarterly/semi-annual. dependent on alerts
And by the way, we've got an ActionPack for that, just hit install and the entire process: from policy creation through audit, is automated for you.
FreePolicyTuesday:
Completely free on www.continuity.net for 1 week. All past policies are noted and archived on our free community.
This policy was generously provided by Jesse Torres of Pan American Bank. The purpose of this policy is to provide guidance relative to the management of vendor relationships. Senior management and the Board of Directors recognize that the development of relationships with vendors is established as a way for the financial institution to offer certain products and services without the need to develop the products and services “in house.” Such “outsourced” relationships benefit the financial institution through reduced costs, improved performance, increased business competitiveness, access to a superior knowledge base and the need for a limited in-house staff to support the financial institution’s business needs.
Closing Comments:
- Check back on Tuesday to check out our next Free Policy Tuesday. We now publish this on the blog as well so you can subscribe to the RSS feed to be notified of each new release.
- interested in seeing the show live?
- please leave any feedback in the comments section
Vendor Management Policy - Free Policy Tuesday
Every Tuesday Continuity Engine releases a free banking policy for use by community banks and credit unions across America. These policies are made available through Creative Commons licensing so that banks and credit unions may freely remix and reuse the content to suit their individual financial institution's needs. When we release a new policy, the previous week's policy is archived on our community where it is always available for free to community members. In case you were wondering, membership in our community is always free for credit union folks and community bankers.
This week we are pleased to offer a Vendor Management policy that was provided by Jesse Torres, President and CEO of Pan American Bank in Los Angeles, CA. You can read more about Mr. Torres and his involvement with the Continuity Engine community in the post for episode 4 of Control Tv.
The purpose of the Vendor Management policy is to provide guidance relative to the management of vendor relationships. Senior management and the Board of Directors recognize that the development of relationships with vendors is established as a way for the financial institution to offer certain products and services without the need to develop the products and services “in house.” Such “outsourced” relationships benefit the financial institution through reduced costs, improved performance, increased business competitiveness, access to a superior knowledge base and the need for a limited in-house staff to support the financial institution’s business needs.
Please remember that this policy is only available for free on our website through August 24, 2009. If you are looking for a particular policy that you would like us to feature on a future Free Policy Tuesday, please let us know in the comments!
Control Tv Episode #4
Episode #4 - August 14, 2009
Episode length: 10 minutes, 57 seconds
View on Viddler
Intro:
- Find your hosts on Twitter: @SonyaJMills and @JimKisch
- New Client shout-out: Jesse and Carlos at Pan American Bank
- www.continuity.net - Join Community and ask your banking peers
- Ask the Expert forums (on Community):
- Andy Greenawalt [Information security]
- Jim Kisch [Compliance and Risk Management]
- Jesse Torres [Social Media Best Practices]
- Karen Licker [Social Media Best Practices]
- LinkedIn: Compliance Support Group
- Twitter: @CE_Community and/or #ControlTv
What's Happening in the Forums?
Social Media Best Practices Group Ask the Experts forum:
Jesse Torres: President and CEO of Pan American Bank in Los Angeles. Mr. Torres' experience includes positions with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a Big Four accounting firm and large and small west coast financial institutions. Mr. Torres is also the author of the popular Community Banker's Guide to Social Network Marketing and the Community Banker's Guide to Hispanic Marketing. Mr. Torres can be found on his blog at socialmediabanking.blogspot.com, on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/jessetorres or @jstorres on Twitter.
Karen Licker: Co-Founder of Bankerstuff.com, has over 20 years of experience in retail banking management and marketing. She has become a recognized leader in providing bankers with unbiased & cutting edge information on the subject of social networking and social media strategy. Karen holds her Bachelor's degree in Ethical, Political and Social Philosophy from the University of Massachusetts, and is a noted lecturer on retail bank sales & marketing strategy at industry conferences and workshops. Karen can be found on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/karenlicker and as @bankerstuff on Twitter.
Coming soon; Bankerstuff 2 part Social Media Toolbox webinar series
- Hear from thought leader on what’s important
- Learn from the community banker what they did that’s working
- Walk away from the sessions with tools to use right now
- Continue to share/explore ideas and resources on the social media group
Compliance Challenge of the Week:
Vendor Management: Financial institutions large and small rely on many vendors. All vendors require some level of oversight. There's lots to do in this area.
Who: IT Manager and Compliance
How Often: Monthly contract reviews, quarterly service level agreements and annual policy reviews
And by the way, we've got an ActionPack for that, just hit install and the entire process: from policy creation through audit, is automated for you.
FreePolicyTuesday:
Completely free on www.continuity.net for 1 week. All past policies are noted and archived on our free community.
The purpose of the external IT audit policy is to establish written guidelines for IT audit coverage that will satisfy the board's audit responsibility for this area. This policy establishes the structure of IT audit coverage, and establishes the scope and frequency of IT audit coverage.
Closing Comments:
- Tuesday 8/18/09 Free Policy Tuesday will be Vendor Management
- interested in seeing the show live?
- please leave any feedback in the comments section
Control Tv Episode #3
Episode #3 - August 7, 2009
Episode length: 23 minutes, 9 seconds
View on Viddler
Intro:
- Find your hosts on Twitter: @SonyaJMills and @JimKisch
- New Client shout-out: Rachel & Nancy from Bridgewater - Wendy from Unity
- www.continuity.net - Join Community and ask your banking peers
- Ask the Expert forums (on Community): Andy Greenawalt [Information security] and Jim Kisch [Compliance and Risk Management]
- LinkedIn: Compliance Support Group
- Twitter: @CE_Community and/or #ControlTv
ICBM history: Jim was their technology chairperson for a few years ending in about 03. Technology resource program, TechXpo, surcharge free network, Segway
ICBM
- Information Technology Security
- General Operations
- General Information Technology (network support, handheld devices policy, mobile banking, Voice over IP)
- Internet Banking, Online cash management, bill payment and mobile banking
- Imaging and Item Processing
- Reports and Business Intelligence
- Website hosting and design
- Fraud Management (data breaches, new card schemes, foreclosure counselors and pandemic)
- Core Banking Systems (Note other groups based on core banking systems: ITI, PCS, JHA)
Compliance Challenge of the Week:
- ACH
Who: credit risks require input from lending area, compliance folks are managing compliance risks and operations folks are covering the transaction risks.
For example:
Underwrite each new originator
Monitoring your thresholds monthly
Reading understanding rules and distributing ACH rules
Review Reg D disclosures monthly
Review Reg E disclosure annually
Review reciprocal or outsource processing agreements annually
Compliance should review audit activities annually
And by the way, we've got an ActionPack for that, just hit install and the entire lifecycle is automated for you.
FreePolicyTuesday:
Completely free on www.continuity.net for 1 week. All past policies are noted and archived on our free community.
The Information Systems Department must approve all Internet users based on their specific needs in performing their job functions. Employees should be aware that nothing on your computer is private information. The Bank Management and the Information Systems Staff, and in some cases other designated staff members, may view the contents of your computer at any time, and all email, letters, visits to web sites, and all other information may be reviewed without your permission or knowledge at any time. Internet users must follow these Internet guidelines.
Closing Comments:
- interested in seeing the show live?
- please leave any feedback in the comments section
Control Tv Episode #2
Episode #2 - July 31, 2009
Episode length: 20 minutes, 26 seconds
Intro:
- Find your hosts on Twitter: @SonyaJMills and @JimKisch
- www.continuity.net - Join Community and ask your banking peers
- Ask the Expert forums (on Community): Andy Greenawalt [Information security] and Jim Kisch [Compliance and Risk Management]
- LinkedIn: Compliance Support Group
- Twitter: @CE_Community and/or #ControlTv
- Community: Geeks (IT Type Folks): Encrypting Emails
Zix Corp
MailSafe from Perimeter: hosted solution
Compliance Challenge of the Week:
- ID Theft Red Flags
Our ActionPack helps prevent ID theft by managing these red flags in the institution and when it occurs facilitates personnel alerts and prompt response to the identity theft. The ActionPack automatically audits and improves the institution's ID theft protection program. The ActionPack is complete with reporting, training and guidance tools. Everything you'll need to Red Flags compliance. Here's what the ActionPack controls:
- monitors ID theft incidents, so the institution can determine whether they have enough red flags to prevent ID theft
- sends onDemand alerts such as suspicious activity to appropriate personnel. For example: Jim Kisch's checks were stolen from the mailbox, all tellers be on the alert!
- manages the list of accounts that should be 'covered' by ID Theft Protection Program. Red flags should generally be established for personal, family or household accounts.
- schedules the assessment to determine what degree these 'covered' accounts are vulnerable to ID theft exploits
- provides for a red flag detection and response analysis
- monitors service provider red flags and ID theft protection measures, the institutions compliance is dependent on it's service providers
- scheduled ID theft awareness program complete with common methods of identity theft. Our helpful information coupled with incident reports and any of the institution's material will be circulated to personnel at least annually.
- ID Theft Protection Program controls audit and "gap" analysis is performed at least once a year. All weaknesses in the institution's Red Flag will be addressed.
- informs clients of common weaknesses and regulator concerns.
FreePolicyFriday:
The purpose of an incident response plan is to establish a formal procedure for handling suspected system intrusions, system misuse, or any situation where unauthorized access to confidential or customer information is detected.
Closing Comments:
- interested in seeing the show live?
- please leave any feedback in the comments section
CE TV Episode #1
Episode #1 - July 17, 2009
Episode length: 23 minutes, 30 seconds
Intro:
- Find your hosts on Twitter: @SonyaJMills and @JimKisch
- Continuity Engine: leading a revolution to make operations and compliance inside credit unions & community banks EASY. Control system with ActionPacks to automate policy, procedure and audit around particular issues or areas of compliance.
- Wayne and Bill from Union Bank
- Adam and Natasha at Americana
- Darren at Atlantic Community Bank
- www.continuity.net - Join Community and ask your banking peers questions
- Ask the Expert forums (on Community): Andy Greenawalt [Information security] and Jim Kisch [Compliance and Risk Management]
- LinkedIn: Compliance Support Group
- Twitter: @CE_Community and/or #ce_tv
- LinkedIn: Compliance Support Group: Pandemic Policy
Make sure all contact information, including vendors, is up to date
- Community: Suits (The Executive Folks): Social Media Policy
opened a new group on Community due to interest in this area
ActionPack of the Week:
- IT Network Support
This ActionPack is designed to be used by in-house network support personnel or an effective means to manage your network support vendor. This powerful AP contains security monitoring, network support, Microsoft maintenance and help desk management. Historically it's been difficult to know what should be done and what is getting done on your data network. This simple to deploy ActionPack will ensure that network monitoring and maintenance will be done on-time, real-time. Here are the areas you can Control:
*Network SecurityFreePolicyFriday:
- Social Media Policy
Thank you, MountainOne Financial Partners for sharing your social media policy!
Closing Comments:
- interested in seeing the show live?
- please leave any feedback in the comments section
Welcoming CUTweetTrack to Community
We're excited to offer CUTweetTrack, a collective of all the credit unions using Twitter, their own private group on Community.
Social media is a hot topic in the Financial Industry right now. Roger Conant saw a need and created a solution with his profile @CUTweetTrack on Twitter. There he follows all the credit unions, leagues, and credit union social media initiatives (typically aimed at drawing the GenY crowd to the credit union movement) that are using Twitter. He has compiled over 330 Twitter profiles in the credit union industry.
His profile has two benefits. First, for the general public, it's the place to go to find out if your credit union is using Twitter. The second benefit is for the credit unions themselves. Roger quickly noticed that credit union Twitter methodology was quite varied among the different profiles. He knew that credit unions pride themselves on collaboration and set about creating a spot where they could discuss the tools, benefits, different strategies and best practices for the Twitter platform.
The next step in the CUTweetTrack project was to create a blog. Roger enlisted the help of his friend and colleague James Robert Lay and the creative team at PTP NEW MEDIA to create the CUTweetTrack blog, the credit union resource for Twitter to help credit unions connect, communicate and listen. The first post, on June 14, 2009, was a great interview with Peter Hodges of BellCo Credit Union in Colorado.
The last step to making CUTweetTrack the truly collaborative project that Roger envisioned, was to find a community platform where the credit union staff could feel free to discuss anything and everything about Twitter and social media in a private forum. This is where Continuity stepped in and offered our Community. We are happy to provide a free, secure environment where credit unions can have discussions, share documents (for remix and reuse under Creative Commons licensing) and connect to each other.
If your credit union is one of the many that CUTweetTrack follows on Twitter, please feel free to join Community. Joining is a simple process requiring only your name and email, plus a username and password that you generate yourself. Once you've joined, you'll want to go to the Group Directory and join the CUTweeetTrack group in the Social Media category. Some of the conversations already started are:
- What to Tweet?
- Quantifying Success
- and Supporting Special Campaigns
Twitter polls: What Does Your Audience Want?
We've got a couple of polls running over on Twitter at the moment and figured we would cross post them here on the blog. Social media is an area where more and more community financial institutions are dipping their toes into lately yet many express a concern with not knowing how to actually use the medium to effectively reach their community audience.
Since these polls are very simple to set up and only require a couple of seconds to respond to, we'll be making this an ongoing project. Once a month we'll post a new question to the Twitter community at large and we hope that the results of these polls will be informative to financial institutions. If you have any suggestions for future polls, please post them in the comments section, we'd love to hear from you!
Also, we'd like to let you know that our whitepaper, Crowdsourcing for Community Bankers, is now available completely free, no registration required. It's available both in pdf format and as a printable article in the whitepaper section of the Continuity Engine website.
Crowdsourcing for Community Bankers
"Crowdsourcing for Bankers? What does that mean?"
"So, it's like a Facebook for bankers? That must be exciting!"
These are some of the comments I've received as I try to tell people what it is our company does. I'll admit, when I first was introduced to the concept by Andy Greenawalt, Continuity Engine's founder and CEO, I had a very similar reaction. You know what though? As I watch our Community grow and bankers help each other with discussions and document sharing on such topics as mobile banking, disaster recovery, International ACH Transaction policy and many others, I do get excited. A platform just for community banks and credit unions that brings together bankers from across the country to share their strengths and get help in the areas they would typically hire a consultant for, is pretty cool!
Andy recently wrote a whitepaper that really crystallizes the concept of crowdsourcing for community bankers. Below is the overview from the paper. You can read it in its entirety, or download the paper, on our website.
Crowdsourcing for Community Bankers
Overview
The requirements of regulatory compliance for community banks and credit unions are at an all time high, and getting more rigorous each year. From GLBA, to safety and soundness, each area is requiring increased focus, definition and work. Each area of the organization needs more detailed policies, procedures, check lists and audits. This increase in work, and its required resources, is happening at the precise time that it can least be afforded.
The position of this paper is that to address this problem, we must make the effort of the work a variable in the equation, and not a constant. The regulatory requirements are certainly not in your control; therefore the work that needs to be done is a constant. It is “HOW” the work gets done that must be variable, the effort. Traditionally each organization has used its own folks, manual methods and consultants to address these areas. The problem with attacking the challenge in this way is that there is no leverage. If you need to move enough dirt to plant a single seed you could use a spoon, but if you needed to plant a field of corn the spoon would simply not move enough dirt. The effort required for the work done wouldn’t make sense. The position of this paper is that there is a new way to attack these problems more efficiently, while saving money, but it’s all a question of HOW? This is a paper about trading that spoon of dirt for some real tools, and working the field with less effort.
Read the rest or download the whitepaper at Continuity Engine.
Photo credit, ArtemFinland
