Banking TNT

Business schools in many countries offer management courses tailored to full time, part-time, executive and distance learning MBA programs. Since MBA degree from any well-known institute not only offers recognition, but also a high salary package, a wide range of MBA programs are tailored with specialized concentrations like finance, marketing, accounting, information technology, human resource management and many other fields. In India, some MBA colleges offer post graduation diploma courses called PGDM programs which are approved by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). AITCE is an apex Indian government undertaking with a view to improve the qualitative technical education system throughout the country and regulate the norms and standards for planning the quantitative growth and matters connected therewith. Since the strength of any country’s economy lies in finance and banking sectors, the importance of MBAs in these sectors cannot be understated.

In India, all types of commercial banks, public sector banks, rural banks, foreign banks, private banks and urban co-operative banking institutions play a significant role in boosting the economy and financial position of the country. MBA degree is considered to be the foremost qualification which is required by these banking and financial institutions for their managerial level positions. MBA education in finance provides important knowledge about the financial skills and solutions for the issues relating to the domestic and international banking and services. Market analysis and cash management skills are two important areas which every MBA student must know how to handle. MBA with specialization in finance offers to learn a variety of subjects like costing, budgeting, corporate finance, international finance, investments, working capital finance and securities etc. MBAs pursuing their courses in finance can start their career in any investment firm or any banking institute as an associate manager. MBA in finance from top MBA colleges offers lucrative job placements from big companies and financial institutes. An MBA in finance has options to work with leading banks and non-banking institutions. He or she might have an option to work as a securities analyst or working with brokerage firms dealing in buying and selling of securities.

Degree of MBA in India from any reputed college is considered to be one of the most sought after degree aimed at providing high class management studies. Since the studies of marketing teaches about the art of selling products and services, MBAs has to analyze and assess the feasibility of products and services according to the market demand. They are required to introduce marketing strategies for marketing new products. They have to set marketing goals and have to work on branding, planning and adoption of promotional campaigns. In other words, marketing MBAs have to bring out new ideas and concepts which can help the companies and organizations to grow and prosper. Marketing MBA courses are designed to help inculcate good reasoning and problem solving skills which can help the individual to sell and market the products in difficult situations. MBA in marketing offers good pay-scale packages and jobs in this area are always in demand for all commercial, industrial and corporate sectors.

About Author: ISBF has been established to impart quality education with international recognition in the area of Economics, CFP, Management and MBA Education courses in India.

Visit us at: http://www.isbf.edu.in/ for more info on MBA and MBA Colleges and Finance courses.

Banking on Internet and mobile is gaining popularity

The Pew Internet & American Life Project Tracking survey of December 2010 said that nearly 60% of all Americans who used the Internet did some banking over it. In the United Kingdom, the number of bank accounts registered for Internet banking grew sharply from 28 million in 2006 to 45 million in 2010. With over 100 million, a Chinese bank has the largest number of Internet banking users in the world.

Cut to mobile banking. A research firm estimated that about 110 million people worldwide used mobile banking and related services in 2010. It also indicated that the geographies of Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa would be the most important markets for financial services using the mobile device. Another one forecasts a stupendous 660% growth in mobile banking and payment services between 2009 and 2014.

A number of factors, including lower cost of connectivity, greater Internet and mobile Internet penetration, affordability of devices and the arrival of the smartphone have gone into popularizing online (Internet and mobile) banking around the world.

However, security threats continue to loom

While these figures are impressive, these could have been higher, had it not been for the security threats surrounding online banking such as phishing, pharming, hacking, keystroke logging, Man-in-the-middle, Trojan horses and several other modes of attack that discourage adoption. The fact remains that despite advancement in security technology, fraudsters still manage to breach banks defenses from time to time. Consider these numbers: every month, around 18,000 phishing attacks take place around the world; 3% of Internet users from the EU27 group of countries lost money to online fraud last year; and there are at least 2,500 varieties of e-banking malware. Nearly 80% of U.S. banks think that malware on their customers PC is a top security risk. Indeed this seems justified because U.S. consumers lost over US$ 2 billion and 1.3 million PCs to malware in 2010.
A compilation of the security threats to mobile and online banking in 2011 ranked malware distribution through social networks, attacks targeted at specific organizations and theft of financial information using malware, at the top.

While fear of fraud has kept a number of customers all over the world from using Internet or mobile banking, at the same time, it has made banking institutions more cautious with their security policies. While there are many threats as described above, a very strong authentication mechanism for customers and transactions will address most fraud related issues. In addition to employing authentication techniques some banks also resort to other measures such as limiting the number of online banking operations that a customer can perform each day, capping the value of individual transactions, or applying additional layers of user authentication in the case of high value or exceptional transactions. On the face of it, banks apply such restrictions to protect their customers. There is also an element of self-interest in it as the banks would like to limit their own risk as well in the event of a transaction being initiated by someone who is not authorized to do so.

The current state of online banking authentication

Having mentioned earlier that authentication of customers and transactions forms the foundation in preventing of online banking fraud; let us look at the current state of online banking authentication models. At present, authentication of online banking users is done using any or a combination of the following methods:

User Id and password: This is the most popular and common method, which involves asking users to enter their User Id and password. As additional security, users may be required to ensure that their passwords are strong, change them routinely after a fixed number of days, or may be assigned a different one for transaction authorization.

Two-factor authentication: This method verifies users identity based on something that they know (user name and password) and something else that they have. For example, a bank might provide a token (physical or virtual) to customers, who, besides entering their password, must enter a random number generated by the token to authenticate themselves each time they conduct a transaction like a payment, for example. Alternatively, the bank might send a One Time Password (OTP) to the customers registered mobile device each time they initiate that transaction. In addition, the bank might subject customers to further scrutiny in case they are performing high value transactions or indulging in any activity that arouses suspicion. Some banks also verify the IP address of the device using which a customer performs a transaction, and should that change, resort to further querying and other forms of additional authentication.

The extent of authentication varies across banks, and depends on its security infrastructure as well as its risk tolerance guided by its risk policies. No doubt, two- factor authentication is more effective at preventing impersonation, but, as the recent breach of RSAs tokens showed, it is not 100% foolproof in fact, a study of banking fraud-related challenges in Latin America showed than almost a third of token users didnt quite trust them. This is the reason why banks take the additional precaution of restricting transactions inspite of implementing such security arrangements. That apart, tools of two-factor authentication have other limitations token are expensive to produce, distribute and administer, and OTPs sent via SMS could take time to reach.

Alternate models of authentication

The recent advancements in emerging technologies could enable new modes of more secure authentication without impacting customer experience. These advancements leverage the inherent capabilities of smartphones to introduce a third factor of identity verification. In three-factor authentication, in addition to furnishing their regular password and an OTP that appears on their token or mobile phone, users will be asked to present something that they possess, which would irrefutably prove their identity. This third factor could be captured using either an application that is installed on the customers smartphones or an inbuilt feature or capability of the device.

Some examples of the third factor are fingerprint, retinal image and voice. Assume for a moment that a customer is trying to transfer a very large sum of money via mobile banking. In the new model of authentication, after the customer submits his two passwords, an application that is loaded on his mobile will prompt him to provide a third factor, say his fingerprint. The customer places his finger on the smartphone screen, following which the application scans the impression and transmits it to the bank, where it is matched against the fingerprint image in their records.

There are other possibilities of biometric authentication as well, such as capturing words spoken by the customer via his phone and matching them against a previously authenticated sample of voice that exists in the banks records, or asking him to take a photograph or retinal scan with his smartphones camera and send it to the bank for approval and authorization.

It is also possible for banks to conduct three-factor authentication of customers who dont own a smartphone, by providing them a device, which can be plugged into their devices which is capable of capturing and transmitting the biometric information.

Key success factors for adoption of newer models of authentication

Currently, the new models of online authentication are in various stages of evolution, and are yet to be commercialized. Once their technology is perfected, these methods can quickly become mainstream security procedure. The following factors play a critical role in creating a favorable environment for the new authentication models to thrive and grow as mainstream models :

Infrastructure: Capture and verification of fingerprint, voice or any other biometric information requires special infrastructure to be set up and integrated. On the capture and verification, support is available from both Government and external agencies, which can capture and store customers biometric samples as well as provide applications to help the banks verify the information.

Advancements in storage technology: Over the years, data storage technology has progressed leaps and bounds that the cost of storage has drastically reduced; the cost per GB of data in 2010 was 1/10th of that in 2000. This combined with increased efficiencies in algorithms of data storage of information such as biometrics has helped banks to attain a position where they could leverage economies of scale with respect to data storage in order to keep the costs of maintaining massive volumes of biometric information manageable. Emergence of the Cloud will only accelerate the ability of banks to adopt this trend faster without having to worry about scalability or performance or security of such data.

Device proliferation: The adoption of the new authentication methods is directly linked to smartphone penetration. For this reason, these techniques would have been unworkable a few years ago; however, with smartphone usage expected to cross 1.7 billion by 2014, and annual sales growing in the region of 75 to 80 percent, the stage is set to welcome sophisticated forms of authentication in the next 3 to 5 years.

Business case: Analysts predict that the spending by banks on anti-fraud solutions will grow at about 30% over the next few years. This is clearly indicative of the industrys concern about the growing sophistication of fraud techniques, which continue to breach security systems, even as theyve become stronger. While this is a clear trigger for the adoption of better authentication solutions such as those built on three factors banks may not invest in them unless they find that the investment more than pays for itself by way of reduction in fraud.

That being said, factors such as technology advancement, reduction in data storage cost, and the availability of a support ecosystem of external partners are favourable to bringing down the cost of implementation, and will thereby strengthen the business case for adoption of the new security models.

In many countries, two-factor authentication is already mandatory for performing online financial transactions, and it is quite possible that this will progress to three factors in future, thus giving the necessary impetus to newer methods.While the above factors are not directly led by consumer behavior, higher customer adoption of online banking could also force banks to look into sophisticated models of authentication. Many banks across the world are now offering more than just banking transactions on their online banking portals, extending the scope of services to wealth management, transaction behavior-led product sales, virtual banking, customer networking etc. If these strategies start to pay dividends then they could also result in higher adoption of online banking, thus forcing banks to adopt the
new models of authentication.

This is an ongoing journey

Signs are ripe that sooner or later, the above mentioned factors will converge to a tipping point when the current methods of authentication will make way for more sophisticated ones. However, this is not the end of the road. While multi-factor authentication looks like a foolproof solution under current circumstances, it is also true that even this will not stop an attacker forever, but merely slow him/her down. The implementation of security technology is neither a one-time effort, nor a guarantee of lifetime protection. What looks like a cutting-edge solution today will be standard fare tomorrow and out of date a few years thereafter. But for now, the future of online banking authentication appears headed in the direction discussed in this paper.

After amplification of globalization finance and banking industry is on boom at present. Many researchers have concluded that future will remain upgrading with increase in job openings. Number of private, public and commercial banks are generating lots of employment opportunities for job seekers. Finance graduates with high level knowledge and skills can now find a chance to work at higher posts with handsome salary. But this was not the case few years back. Due to recession many big nations were suffering from economic crash and their financial positions were collapsed. There was decline in employment opportunities for banking jobs. Many international banks have begun cutting jobs and trimming workforce. Now situation is twisted; tons of job opening are attracting finance graduates to apply for finance jobs in banks. There are different career positions to raise your career graph to reach highest peak. You are allowed to grow and have promotions with your abilities and skills. Several banking jobs include probationary officer, clerk, cashier, loan officer, financial analyst etc. These posts are filled with job seekers having required skills and qualifications. Here are some jobs explained below: Most commonly known person in bank is a cashier also known as teller. Teller is a key person who performs various tasks but popularly known as a person playing with cash. They ought to deal with cash and payment to customers after money withdrawal. Customers are served with information on behalf of organization by customer service representatives. They introduce banks’ products and services and solve queries asked by clients. Accountants and information clerks collect, process and store data and information and maintain records. They used to provide clerical and administrative information as per requirement to other officers or to clients. There are receptionists who maintain traffic in bank. They act as helpers for people coming to bank. They guide customers about counters, account information, policies, loans etc. They help people in need and direct them to a person whom they should meet to solve their queries. Major positions are held by financial analysts, loan officers. Financial analysts evaluate financial data, study past trends and suggest ways of investment to business persons with regards to banking services. Loan officers assess current business or property, authorize it and sanction amount of loan to individuals or businesses in conjunction with approval of payment returns. There are others who work for banks such as auditors check financial records for accuracy and suggest likely changes on account of its prosperity. Owing to computers and internet technology bank transactions have become fast and up to date. Electronic data recording and transactions aid to save a lot of time and efforts. This leads to increase in job opening for skilled employees in banks. All these taken into account brings to an end that there are numerous banking jobs for fresher as well as experts. You just need to grab employment opportunity by applying for it and enhance your career. Rohit Irabatti is the author of this article. He has wide knowledge of overseas jobs and work abroad. He also has a keen interest in writing stuff for job related topics. He has written various articles on Banking jobs .

The current day is a day of brutal competition among the biggies in the software industry. Because flow with the newer and sharper technology is never ending, the content Technology companies who definitely are implementing the greater end software go on introducing the certifications and tests to gauge the potential employees which join them. For precisely the same purpose, Certmagic has introduced Banking Certification exams inside the technical circle; this exam is one very sought-after and difficult exam to break into. However, once this exam has been cleared, the candidate should expect some fireworks in her career. This particular exam is about the introduction of a Team Leader that can work cohesively having a team, and derive the absolute maximum possible output, so that the enterprise level expectations and promises are completely fulfilled. Designing, Configuring, Installing and Troubleshooting the application form server for the enterprise level could be the basic criteria just for this examination. The successful candidate will also have to tidy up the presales, post install supports. The potential candidate is predicted to get a detailed and expertise level knowledge in at least one on the following products from your Banking Certification software giant: Specialties on the Dynamic Infrastructure: Business Resilience, Information Structure, Virtualization and Consolidation. Further, as being a prerequisite just for this certification, our recommendation is that the IT professional appearing just for this test holds any one of the following certifications from the technical domain: Apart out of this, the self paced training kits are giving the strategy for both practice and practicing the Banking Certification exams and give the top solution. The expert professionals offer the information and guidelines when getting the Banking Certification study material in the perfect manner. It makes all the possible ways for as an efficient professional. The Banking Certification exams are giving the methods for overcoming areas inside the IT sectors. The Banking Certification offers the techniques for solving the complex problems as a result of latest developments.

QuickBooks Online Banking saves users a lot of time by allowing you to download your bank transactions directly into QuickBooks. This process will match up any existing transactions that you may have already entered, along with adding any missing transactions that you may not have entered yet. A lot of our clients that require QuickBooks assistance use this, but there is always one area where they might need more understanding, Renaming Rules.

Because of the way banks store vendor names, QuickBooks has a feature to allow you to match up what the bank has on file as the name of a vendor to what you have as a name. This is, at the basic level, the renaming rules. You tell QuickBooks that when you see a name come from the bank, replace it with an existing name that is already in QuickBooks.

Most of my clients understand this, and even if they dont, QuickBooks does this mostly in the background. However, the renaming rules option allows for more flexibility than simply renaming one name to another. Take Verizon for example, which may download as verizon wrls 10001 newyork as the name. If I were to let QuickBooks do my renaming for me, it would rename the downloaded name into Verizon Wireless as my vendor name. However, if I also open up a second account for someone who is located in San Francisco, their charge might show as verizon wrls 70315 frisco. Because this name is different I would have to tell QuickBooks what vendor this is, even though it is obvious that its Verizon.

You access the renaming rules by clicking the Renaming Rules link at the upper right of the online banking window. Over on the left side, you will see a list of all your QuickBooks names. When you select a name, you will then have the option of how QuickBooks matches the name. The available selections are Begins with, Ends with, Contains, and Exactly Matches. After you make your selection, you then enter the text that will determine what QuickBooks matches with. By default, it will have any previously downloaded names.

For our Verizon example, I could setup a renaming rule that exactly matches verizon wrls 70315 frisco, but then if I ever got something from another state I would have to set it up again. This is where the other matching options are useful. For this vendor, I would select Begins with as my method and use verizon wrls as my matching value. This means that even if I were to download verizon wrls 12345 someplace it would still match and I would never have to setup Verizon again.

For some vendors, Begins with works, but for others it may not be the best selection. FedEx for example may download as #3290 FED EX 93040-324-xx-3442. The number at the beginning changes, so Begins with wont work, but Contains would be great here. I could set my rule to Contains as the method and FED EX as the match. This would mean that no matter what the first or last numbers are, it would get renamed to FedEx on my vendor list.

By taking the time to setup vendors with the best matching methods, Online Banking will be faster, which allows you to focus more on whats important; running your business that is!