- A weblog by InetSolutionBy Jason Sherrill
Posted on Mar 9, 2010
Marc Rapport's advice in his article at CUTimes.com is a good reminder that even high-caliber security like MemberProtect provides is cannot protect bank and credit union user's who don't exercise good judgment when managing their online identities.
Continue reading "Good Security on Banking Site No Match for Poor Security Elsewhere" »
By Justin Gattuso
Posted on Mar 6, 2010
Security researchers have recently discovered a new black market malware application specifically targeting banking websites that offer ACH and wire transfer services. Similar to its popular counterparts Zeus and Clampi, Bugat works by harvesting logon, RBA and PIN credentials from infected users' machines, among other things. Most bank and credit union websites have few defenses against this type of malware application, but the latest versions of MemberProtect can help to render Trojan horse applications like Bugat ineffective.
Continue reading "New Bugat Malware Aimed at Banking Websites to Steal Customer Data" »
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Mar 4, 2010
For some time now Google has warned its search users if your site contains malware or other dangerous code. Unfortunately, they did not provide any notification to webmasters of the hacked sites. This meant that website owners usually learned of hacking issues from their customers or site visitors. Not only can that be embarrassing for site owners, but it can also have a severe impact on sales and lead to potential identify theft, especially on banking websites.
Well, now I have good news, especially for banks, credit unions, retail e-commerce and other website owners for whom security and quick response to website hacks is of utmost concern. According to Google's Webmaster blog, Google will now notify webmasters when Googlebot has detected that a website has been hacked.
Continue reading "Google Will Now Alert You if Your Website Has Been Hacked" »
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Mar 3, 2010
If you've worked with us on a web development or SEO project, then you've undoubtedly heard us preach the benefits of code optimization. Not only does lightweight, well-optimized code reduce development, troubleshooting and on-going maintenance costs, but front-end code optimization can improve user experience as well by, among other things, reducing page load times.
There has been buzz for the past few months that Google may give developers another benefit to optimizing code for fast page loading - search engine rankings.
Continue reading "Code Optimization A Factor in Google Search Rankings Yet?" »
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Feb 23, 2010
I liked this innovative approach to showcasing the root fundamentals of the economic theories of Hayek and Keynes. I was also impressed that they shot the video for this on a Canon 7D digital SLR. Give it a look, it'll take you back to all the good memories you have of college econ lectures.
Continue reading "Modern Take on Keynesian and Austrian Economic Theory" »
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Feb 10, 2010
Lynn Gaertner-Johnston's post today titled When "Customer Service" Letters Undercut Bankers should remind us of the importance of personalizing communications to banking customers.
Continue reading "Personalization More Important Than Ever When Banks Communicate with Customers" »
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Feb 8, 2010
Unless you have the luxury of having no competitors, then you probably have at least some interest in keeping tabs on your competition. For example, perhaps you're a banker and want to stay abreast of your competitor's mortgage interest rates. But what's the easiest way to do that? If your competitor offers a rate notification service, you could sign up for that and just wait for the emails to arrive. If they don't offer that service, then you could periodically remember to visit their website to veiw rates. But there's a faster, easier way you can keep tabs on not only their rates, but any other changes they make to their website. I'll explain in this screen cast how to use Google Reader to monitor your competitor's website in a way that will automatically notify you anytime content changes.
Continue reading "Using Google Reader to Monitor Competitor Websites for Changes" »
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Feb 4, 2010
One of the most popular questions we've fielded from our clients over the past twelve months has been, "How do we use Facebook and Twitter effectively?" While can provide many strategies that vary by client, a real-world example speaks volumes. Ally Bank provides just such an example.
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Feb 4, 2010
For over 10 years we have worked with banks and credit union managers to design and implement online banking, internet & e-mail marketing, customer service and website solutions. In many instances, prior to our work with the organization, they had few metrics by which they measured their website's return on investment (ROI). To help our prospective clients establish a starting point for measuring ROI, we created an online Bank and Credit Union Website ROI Calculator.
Continue reading "Calculating Website ROI for Banks and Credit Unions" »
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Feb 1, 2010
With so many users turning to the Internet for their banking activities, it's disappointing how few small banks and credit unions offer customers a live chat communication channel on their public facing websites. Live chat results in significant cost savings versus telephone support. Live chat also increases a bank or credit union's ability to convert visitors into new customers. Given these and other benefits, I'm consistently surprised at the two reasons managers most commonly give for not implementing live chat.
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Jan 11, 2010
The CEO of a mid-sized credit union in Michigan called me to ask advice on how best to use Facebook as part of his credit union's marketing strategy. He wanted to know the benefit of having a Facebook page and how it would actually benefit his bottom line. He was skeptical of the value that social media offered his organization and wondered if I thought his skepticism was justified. He said my answer was helpful to his decision whether to move forward, so I thought the information might also help other bank and credit union executives in evaluating whether to use social media.
Continue reading "How Credit Unions and Banks Could Use Social Networking More Effectively" »
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on May 18, 2009
If you've ever called your utility company, credit card company or any large corporation, you've likely experienced the frustration of sitting on hold for painfully long periods of time. Some companies have helpful phone systems that will tell you that you're caller number X in the queue, or that your expected wait time is Xteen minutes. That's cool, and helpful, but today I saw something on one of my banking websites that I think raises the bar for companies providing telephone customer service.
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Feb 6, 2009
I'm a huge proponent of staged rollouts for credit union websites, especially if the sites are ground up builds packed with new features. I sometimes have to fight hard to convince my clients of the benefits since most of the time they're giddy with excitement about the new website and want to give their members access to everything on day one. I usually spend a lot of time selling the virtues of delayed gratification, mostly in writing, sometimes verbally. I thought today it would be interesting to try a slightly different approach with a fun new client.
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Feb 4, 2009
Reading about the recent $6,000,000.00 settlement between Target Corporation, owners of Target.com retail e-commerce site, and the National Federation for the Blind (NFB) over the lack of website accessibility at Target.com for disabled people reminded me of an important topic that the banking industry seems to have largely missed. The Target settlement has stirred some high profile players like Amazon.com and RadioShack.com to consider their own website’s accessibility, both to stave off lawsuits and to capitalize on the lucrative revenue potential this 50 million1 people strong group of customers represents.
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Sep 9, 2008
If you've known us for long at all, then you know that we're well known in the credit union world for our website development and website hosting services. Of course, we've always given more focus on our www.inetsolution.com website to our development & programming services than hosting, yet hosting is a big part of what we do at Inet. Well, we finally decided to give our hosting operation it's own spotlight by creating a website dedicated to credit union website hosting.
By Donovan Myers
Posted on Aug 23, 2008
Last week I had the displeasure of applying for a new credit card and it's accompanying 0% balance transfer offer on the Internet. Now, I can't say that the whole process was horrible - and don't worry, everything worked out in the end - but one single thing could have made the process a lot more enjoyable:
Confirmations!
Read on to hear about my experience.
Continue reading "Online Banking No No: Um, what's going on here? " »
By Donovan Myers
Posted on Aug 23, 2008
Here is a screenshot of my actual email client (Mail for Mac OS X) at the size I run it on a daily basis. A legitimate email from CitiMortgage is displayed in the window. For my 3 deal-killers, I will be referencing this image throughout.
Our inboxes are becoming increasingly more difficult to manage. Even if we have the best spam blocking in the world, we're still getting more and more legitimate emails every day. Credit card statements, payment due notifications, Amazon.com order confirmations, shipment notifications, and Facebook updates just to name a few. Pruning your inbox in this day-and-age could take hours.
Continue reading "Three Deal-killers In Banking Email Design " »
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Feb 21, 2008
Today I signed into one of my AT&T accounts and was presented with their risk-based authentication (RBA) setup page. The challenge question choices they presented reminded me how important it is to follow a few simple rules when choosing challenge questions for your users to choose.
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Feb 19, 2008
One of the easiest methods to quickly collect customer feedback is via online surveys, posted either on your website or distributed via email. Since few website content management systems (CMSs) offer survey tools and third-party products can be expensive and cumbersome to install, not many small and mid-size banks and credit unions use online surveys.
Using a new feature in Google spreadsheets, anyone can easily create, distribute and analyze online surveys. Best of all, it's free! Let me show you how to get started.
Continue reading "Post Online Surveys to Your Bank Website for Free" »
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Jan 4, 2008
Last week I got a new computer (IBM ThinkPad T60p), which means I retired my old ThinkPad T41. Today is the first time that I've tried to logon to my Chase online account to pay my credit card bill, which is due today. I've never had a problem logging on, but today the Chase online banking site has recognized that my computer fingerprint has changed. The hair-pulling experience I'm in the middle of right now has reminded me that it's a fine line we as software developers walk between creating tough-to-crack security while continuing to make sure our software is user friendly.
Continue reading "Tough Security vs. Good Usability on Chase Bank Website" »
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Sep 21, 2007
PGP (www.pgp.com) is one of the most common methods of protecting financial data that customers submit through bank and credit union websites. PGP provides excellent data encryption, but many users leave sensitive PGP-encrypted data vulnerable without even knowing they’re doing so.
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Aug 2, 2007
The second most common question that managers at banks, credit unions and other financial institutions have asked me over the past year is, "What is the best way to secure our online forms, such as loan applications and contact us forms?" Here are a few simple guidelines your development team should follow when creating your online applications.
By Justin Gattuso
Posted on Nov 21, 2006
Here at InetSolution we do a lot of work with banking applications and due to this we run into the need to validate ABA numbers for proper length, format and checksum. ABA numbers are bank routing and transit numbers that are assigned to banks and credit unions in the United States. These are 9 digit values with a built-in checksum value that results from an internal algorithm to ensure that a given 9 digit string is in fact a real ABA number.
We have a small and very simple component to help programmers using .NET to perform the ABA validation without worrying about the internal algorithm involved, just feed it a string and it will perform its magic to let you know if the string is a validly formatted ABA number or not, and if it isn’t, how it is wrong so you can let your users know.
Continue reading ".Net Component to Perform ABA Validation" »
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on Jun 4, 2004
Confusing forms with no guidance
Most credit union websites rely on forms as their primary interactive tool to allow members to conduct business. Unfortunately, most sites leave members in the dark in regards to properly completing forms or what to do when errors occur. We’ve even found forms that intentionally delete data input without warning users.
Continue reading "2004 Top Five Credit Union Website Usability Mistakes - #1" »
By Jason Sherrill
Posted on May 3, 2003
Low online prices and special offers are great, but do they actually help you build credibility with your credit union members or bank customers? The latest research might surprise you!
Continue reading "Website Design Credibility Is A Key To Bank and Credit Union Website Success" »
By Donovan Myers
Posted on Jan 13, 2003
Something as simple as a link to a missing page can tarnish the credibility of a credit union web site. When links are broken or pages are no longer available, a reputation is at stake and business may go elsewhere. From intermittent outages by third party service providers like home banking, to loan application forms that don’t submit properly, credit unions are quick to point a finger at their service provider. In the end, it’s the member that loses faith in the on-line system. Credit unions need to be as mindful of their web site appearance as they are a clean, bright lobby. Housekeeping applies to all representations of the credit union.
By Donovan Myers
Posted on Jan 6, 2003
As credit union web sites grow, and are forced onto the same playing field as banks, the need to add services like on-line banking, bill payment and credit card statements is the cost of doing business. However as credit unions add this functionality to their web sites, it’s fair to say that the term “integrated” doesn’t always exist in these implementations. In many cases, the member must use a separate ID and password for each service, sometimes up to five IDs for a single credit union web site. Add to this equation the disparate interfaces that members must learn, and you have a system that is less than usable.
Donovan - Creative Director
Justin - Lead Architect & Developer
Somer - Graphic Designer
Mac - Programmer
Larry - Programmer
Mosh - Programmer
Paul - Technical Sales Architect
Jay - Weekend & Holidays Sys Admin
Karen - Business Development & Client Care
Jason - Project Director
We make business websites profitable. We do it with usable design, solid programming and unique, methodical marketing.
