COLUMBIA, S.C. - Think your credit union's safe and secure, hiding all that confidential data and crucial functionality behind the latest and greatest in firewalls? Think again. "The lesson of the Code Red worm is that firewalls didn't prevent it, period. That's the issue," says Chuck Welsh, president of NetBankAudit...

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Richard Hurt says moving from the service bureau and its proprietary environment that had served his credit union for 10 years to an "open system" vendor was positively liberating. Annette Zimmerman, meanwhile, says her credit union's relationship with its proprietary core-system processor has not inhibited her organization...

ROCK HILL, S.C. - Lee Gardner knows about the pitfalls of portals. When his credit union discovered the car-pricing service linked to their Web site was advertising an unaffiliated auto-financing service, it pulled the plug on that relationship. Gardner is president/CEO of Family Trust Federal Credit Union (www.familytrust.org) in Rock...

COLUMBIA, S.C. - People sometimes get their best ideas while shopping. Just ask Carol Brown, who happened upon the inspiration for the newest tool in her credit union's member-service lineup while doing a bit of online shopping. "We're all Web surfers around here," says the vice president of member and...

SAN ANTONIO - While the use of customer-relationship management (CRM) technology is becoming more widespread among credit unions and other financial institutions, its implementation is often piecemeal and usually outsourced, according to a new survey. Harte-Hankes Inc. conducted the survey in May (www.harte-hankes.com) and included 300 North American companies using...

BATON ROUGE, La. - When John Milazzo arrived at Campus Federal Credit Union 16 years ago, there were three PCs in the whole operation, and they sat unused in a hallway. Now the Baton Rouge, La., credit union builds its own. That's just one example of the expanding role of...

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Using telecommunications wizardry to accomplish the simplest of tasks, including getting to know one another, is the magic behind the power of an intranet. Intranet is more than just a buzzword. It's a powerful tool in the management arsenal of today's modern businesses, including credit unions. And...

COLUMBIA, S.C. - Ron Daly has a lot of confidence in the future of electronic statements. Enough that he gave up his executive-level job to create a company specializing in the new service, which has gotten a boost in the year or so since federal regulators decided to allow credit...