Technology & Finance

Greg Schmeisser is the VP of Information Systems at the credit union. Greg joined Finance Center in 1996 and is responsible for all technological initiatives.

Greg’s background includes 13 years of prior experience (programming, design, and management) in a small software company and a degree in Business Administration.

In addition to his responsibilities at the credit union, he actively consults with other credit unions and serves on client advisory boards for two industry software providers.

Greg lives in New Castle, Indiana with his wife and their four children. The oldest will begin college in the fall and the youngest will be ready for pre-school.

Greg maintains a presence on Linkedin and Facebook.

In a recent survey released by Fiserv, one of the largest Bill Payment processors in the nation, one of the largest deterrents to online bill payment usage is “understanding how it works”. So, I’ll answer that concern for Finance Center FCU members.

Setting-up BillPayer involves just a few simple steps:

• Entering a payee list
• Scheduling payments
• Maintaining payment schedules or amounts

First, a member adds payees to their Bill Payer list, by entering the details from the bill they receive (Payee Name, Address used to pay the bill, Payee Phone number, and Payee Account Number). These details are used to match the member’s bill with the most efficient means of payment for that payee. Payment means include: Same-Day payment, electronic payment, and Paper check payment.

Payment Scheduling can take multiple forms depending on how the member configures the payment schedules. Each form meets a variety of member needs.

• One-time payments
• Recurring payments
• Biller directed payments (coming to Financial Center in September)

One Time Payments - In this form, members set the amount and date of the payment each time it needs to be made. This is necessary for bills where the amount varies with each bill, or when the member wants to control the date the bill is paid. This method provides the member with the most control, but also requires the member to interact with BillPayer the most.

Recurring Payments – This method is great for bills where the amount and due date only change once or twice a year. Utility bills with “budget” payments, insurance premiums, or other fixed payment bills fit well in this method. The member sets the amount of the bill and the due date. The system then pays the bill this amount by the due date with the frequency the member assigns (Monthly, Quarterly, Annually, etc.). This method requires occasional member interaction such as when the billing amount changes.

Bill Directed (coming to Financial Center in September) - This can be either One-time or Recurring. This is the next advancement in Bill Payment services. This service enhancement allows billers (payees) to present their bill through the Bill Payment service (e-Bills). The due date, amount due, and payment method are all part of the presentation of the bill. The member can review the bill and then direct the Bill Payment service to pay the bill. In some cases this Method will allow the BillPayer service to use the Biller presented information to manage the entire payment process. So, if the amount varies on the bill the amount paid would automatically vary without the member interacting with BillPayer at all. This method is great for reducing the amount of US Mail and for bills with variable amounts such as telephone or cell phone bills.

Found this article and thought I should share.

Just when you thought you'd seen it all, a new and particularly nasty form of Internet phishing, called tab-nabbing, poses a new identity theft threat to web users.

Phishing happens when a scammer deceives you into giving away information about yourself, mostly account details such as username and password.

Usually via an email or a link on another web page, they direct you to a bogus site that looks exactly like the genuine article -- like PayPal or Amazon for example -- and captures your login details when you try to sign in.

The crook can then use those details to sign on and remove money or make purchases on your account.

All of these previous online phishing scams rely on the user being fooled into clicking a link, whereas the tab-nabber plays a different and much less obvious trick.

If you're a regular Internet user, you'll know how tabs work. In your browser -- for example, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome -- they allow you to have several pages open at once, and to hop from one to the other.

Sometimes, when you click on a link in one page, it opens the new page in a separate tab, and it's not unusual to have half a dozen or more tabs open at once.

You even forget which ones you had open, which helps the tab-nabber immensely.

The way this particularly evil form of Internet phishing works goes like this:

• You already have a couple of tabs open when you land on a page controlled by the tab-nabber (though you won't know this).
• While you're viewing this page, the tab-nabber accesses your browsing history to see which sites you regularly visit that have value to him -- again like Amazon, PayPal or an email account like Gmail.
• Tab-nabber then changes one of your tabbed pages to mimic one of these sites, complete with what looks like the genuine logo on the tab itself, hoping, when you return to this tab, you will think you must have visited that page earlier and just forgotten.
• Even better, from the tab-nabber's point of view, you may really have just visited the genuine site (your bank, for example), left it open in the tab, and then returned to it to discover you seem to have been logged out.
• Either way, the aim is to get you to think you're logging in again and, hey presto, the scammer has pulled off his cunning Internet phishing trick.

Two key aspects make this much more effective than previous online phishing scams:

First, you don't have to click a link to get to the bogus page; you just click on what looks like a genuine page tab.

Second, it uses sites you habitually visit whereas phishing emails often seem to come from organizations you've had no dealings with, so you would immediately suspect something was wrong.

Making this scheme more effective, if you do your banking online, the bank often will actually sign you out if there's no activity on their page, even if you still have it open in a tab. It's not unusual to be asked to sign on again.

However, two other things give the tab-nabbing trick away: First, although the page may look genuine, the Internet address or URL (the name of the site given in the address bar at the top of your browser) won't.

So, the real Amazon home page for instance will show "amazon.com" but a bogus page will have something quite different, even if it has the word "amazon" in it.

Third, the little padlock icon that appears in your browser (usually bottom right or beside the address bar), when you visit a secure website, will generally be missing.

Still, it's a wicked deception, highlighted recently by a specialist who works for Mozilla, the organization that makes the Firefox browser. You can see his video demonstration of tab-nabbing (sometimes also called "tabnabbing" or "tabnapping") here if you have Adobe Flash installed.

What can you do to ensure you don't fall victim to this new type of Internet phishing? To be doubly-secure, here's what you should do.

1. Get into the habit of glancing at the address bar for every page you visit or revisit. This makes good secure-surfing sense anyway.
2. Look for that padlock on what should be a secure site page.
3. After visiting a secure page, close it when you're done, rather than keeping it open in a tab.
4. If a site invites you to sign on again, close the tab and re-key the correct address.

Any one of these four steps should help steer you clear of a tab-nabbing scam -- and if you have security software integrated with your browser, that should flag bogus sites too. With Internet phishing, you just can't be too cautious.

Source (http://www.scambusters.org/internetphishing.html  or http://www.scambusters.org/ search for Internet Scambusters #395)

• Create diversity in your online credentials. Do not reuse sensitive credentials across multiple sites and particularly with non-sensitive sites (e.g. using your online banking credentials for social sites or web mail).
• Maintain diversity between sensitive credentials. Do not use the same password between multiple transactional sites (banking, shopping sites,  etc.). 
• Protect both the User ID and the password for sensitive credentials.

• "... 73 percent of bank customers use their online account password to access other websites, and that 47 percent use both their online banking user ID and password to login elsewhere on the internet."
• "... this widespread reuse of online banking credentials is being exploited by criminals who have devised various methods to harvest login credentials from less secure sources, such as webmail and social network websites. Once acquired, these usernames and passwords are tested on financial services sites to commit fraud."
• "... when a bank allows users to choose their own user ID, 65 percent of users share this ID with nonfinancial websites."
• "... when a bank chooses the user ID for its customers, 42 percent of customers use the bank issued user ID with at least one other website."

My daughter is almost prepared to move off to her first year at college. It has been interesting to watch her prepare for the event. Most of the summer was spent almost in denial that the move was coming. Now, when there are only a couple of weeks before move-in day, the activities are increasing. She is organizing lists of items to remember to pack, to purchase, and to make sure her roommates are bringing. The questions go like this: Is anyone bringing a microwave, TV, dvd player, etc.? What is your cell number? Do you have a txt’ing plan? Are you on Facebook?

Observing all this I reflected on how little I took to college my freshman year. A bicycle, a large suitcase full of clothes, laundry supplies, some school supplies, an Apple IIe, and a checkbook are really the only things that I recall. The recollection got me thinking about how different this will be for Kristen.

One of my biggest challenges was managing finances from 2.5 hours away from a branch in a time when branches were necessary for deposits. Back in that day, phone banking much less PC banking were non-existent, ATMs only talked to the bank they were in, the only plastic that could be used for a purchase was a Credit Card and no one my age had one of those. So, I had the only tool available a checkbook. When my checkbook balance got low, I had to pay for a long distance call to my parents so they could go to the branch at home and transfer money from their account into my checking account.

By contrast, my daughter has a Reward Checking account (earning 4.51% interest), online banking, phone banking, and a Debit Card. Her accounts and mine are at Finance Center FCU. When she needs extra funds, I can transfer them from my account to her account 24x7 and the funds move in real-time using a PC, an ATM, or the phone. She has a checkbook but the box of checks she received will probably last until after her college graduation, because she does not write checks; she uses her debit card for purchases.

Her school is 4 hours from a Finance Center FCU branch , but if she gets a check while at school she can go to either an ATM or a Shared Branch Service Center in her town to deposit the item into her account. She will probably never get a check from a student, they all use PayPal to transfer funds when splitting a pizza bill, and the school uses direct deposit and direct debits.

When I was at college, I had to keep my checkbook balanced or I would never know when I was running low on funds. Kristen’s Finance Center FCU account sends her an email when her balance is below any threshold she has set. She still keeps track of the balance, but the system tells her that she is in need of a little cash.

Could the capabilities of Finance Center FCU help you and your student get ready for a new stage in your life? Our products and services eliminate the problems of a long-distance relationship.

Is your high school student already managing a checking account? Have you considered a student checking account at Finance Center FCU?

Two weeks ago, during an all staff meeting Finance Center FCU was celebrating the NAFCU Federal Credit Union of the year award. To involve the staff in the celebration shirts were designed with an alteration to the Credit Union logo on the front and the NAFCU award logo proudly displayed on the back of the t-shirt.

To make the event fun, management “modeled” the new shirts by accessorizing the shirt in a variety of ways using silly or stereotyped themes and walking the “runway" to Madonna’s “Vogue”. It was a fun way to include the staff in the celebration of this national award recognition and announce a series of dress-down days that incorporate this new shirt.

So our “Madonna” model accessorized her shirt by wearing a torpedo bra over top of her new shirt. The shirt was accessorized by an outdoorsman in a coonskin hat, a cowboy, a business professional, and others. The accessories included swim goggles and inflatable float, neck tie, a formal skirt and heels, and a fishing rod and trekking pole.

So guess what the VP of Information Systems is elected to dress as? You should have guessed one of the stereotypes - The Geek, but I also dressed as a 1950’s greaser.

All in good fun and enjoyed by both the presenters (management) and the audience (staff).

I have witnessed a prominent vendor use their staff like this for a variety of silly or comical events as ice-breakers at their national client conferences. The participating staff is never sure how it will be received by the audience. To tell the truth, I have never seen one of these flop. The staff appears to enjoy putting on the event and the audience usually ends-up talking about it for a while after it is over. As a strategy for creating memorable moments, it appears to work quite well.

So, would you be willing to do something silly like this for your employer?
Have you volunteered or been asked to participate in something similar?
Have you declined an opportunity to participate in a silly event?

In a letter to its financial institution partners, Microsoft (MS)announced that it will cease sales of Microsoft Money after June 30^th, 2009.

“With banks, brokerage firms and Web sites now providing a range of options for managing personal finances, the consumer need for Microsoft® Money Plus has changed. After suspending annual updates of Money Plus in 2008, Microsoft is announcing that we will no longer offer Microsoft Money Plus for purchase after June 30th, 2009. This includes Microsoft Money Essentials, Money Plus Deluxe, Money Plus Premium, and Money Plus Home & Business.”

Microsoft is ceasing its online feature support for all versions of Money after January 30^th 2011. MS will post a public announcement on its web site on June 11^th, 2009 (www.Microsoft.com/money). The impact on the Small Business Accounting software (now called Accounting Express) that was based on Money is not detailed, but its fate is not expected to be impacted by the end of the consumer oriented MS Money.

They also say they will post an FAQ detailing a variety of the services that will no longer operate after 2010.

In the FAQ, Microsoft is not recommending that current Money users upgrade from any currently supported version (2006 or higher). However with the announcement of the product’s sunset date, the last version may experience fire-sale pricing.

So, what will MS Money users, like me, do to maintain our personal finances? Some options spring to mind.

• Buy Quicken or some other Personal Finance Management software (PFM)?
• Investigate the myriad of Online PFM providers? Mint, Wesabe, Yodlee, Mvelopes, ... Google lists dozens of these.
• Scrap it all and go back to using a spreadsheet?
• Wait to see what my bank or Credit Union decides to support?

First of all, there is no great hurry. MS Money will continue to function through 2010 and most of the features will continue to function well beyond. Money will still track your expenses, your budget, and project your cash flows. Tax tables, investment rates and prices have always been updateable manually.

Financial Center Online will still support both the history download features and the direct-connect interface (history and BillPayer integrations). Because these features operate independent of the Microsoft sites and services, they will continue to function after the 2011 sunset date.

Perhaps you too will be using this event to evaluate what you were getting from using MS Money in the first place? For me, the product is used for

• Cash flow projection
• Budget management
• Investment “tracking” (IRA, 401k, and stocks) – mostly statement balancing.

Defining what I really need in a PFM will make choosing a new tool much easier. I was never enough of an accountant to enjoy using Quicken and my needs are really not that sophisticated.

Join a credit union today. Find yours at youbelonghere.com 

The features of the transfer options in Financial Center Online allow even complex transfer instructions to be managed by the member. Offered to all members by Finance Center, an Indianapolis Credit Union.

A unique transfer offered by Financial Center Online is the Automated Distribution. This Account Service Center is a specialized transfer that allows members to distribute Direct Deposit funds among their accounts at the time they are posted to the account. This is a utility that some institutions have available to their teller staff, but is seldom offered as a member self-service tool. This handy feature prevents the member from having to workout these arrangements with their employer’s HR staff, or from having to create the distribution instructions using other available transfer tools.

A specialized feature of this transfer is the transfer amount for a loan can the Payment Due, or Payment Plus an addition amount. These features allow the payment amount to vary with altering conditions in a loan that would alter its payment amount (advances on lines of credit, balloon payments, re-amortization at rate change, etc.).

An example could be: a member is paid bi-weekly and has self-directed that $500 be placed in Savings, $600 be placed in Money Market, $300 is paid on an auto loan, and the remainder is placed in the checking account.

Recurring transfers is a calendar based transfer option. Within this Account Service Center there is a short list of calendar dates for transfers. These Transfers work like the Automated Distribution – multiple distributions can be selected for these Monthly transfers and Payment and Payment Plus can be used. One draw back to this transfer is that only one funding source may be selected for each listed date. Each item in the list of distributions for a date source can have its own Start and End date.

A specialized item on the Recurring Transfer list is Loan Due Date. This transfer executes the configured transfer(s) on any loan’s due date.

Scheduled Transfer allows the selection of a start-date, frequency, and end date for a transfer from one account to another. Accessed from the Personal Finance Center, this transfer function offers the flexibility of selecting any date, a variety of frequencies, and multiple funding sources. A draw back to this transfer option is it does not offer the distribution option. Distributions can be created but they are created as one-to-one transfers. Scheduled transfer does not support the “variable” payment amount, discussed above, for loans but does default to the current payment amount when transferring to a loan. The Frequency selection allows these transfers to be either recurring or one-time future-dated transfers.

One-time Transfer executes one-time transfers between accounts. This is exactly the same functionality as the Scheduled Transfer, except it executes upon submission and does not reoccur.

In a continuing series on money literacy, this post covers the basics of transfer functions.

Once the notifications are established the next step in how to manage money is to setup and configure funds transfers. There are 3 basic transfer types. Manual transfers, Scheduled transfers, and Reoccurring transfers. Financial Center Online provides these basic functions and adds some special features to them.

The Manual transfer is just like it sounds. A member executes an on demand transfer between accounts. This is the most basic function and can usually be accomplished through a variety of channels - online, phone, and at ATMs.

Reoccurring transfers allow for the transfer to be executed again in the future. These are characterized by setting a frequency and an ending date. For example, transfer $750 from Savings to checking on the 1^st of every quarter. More specialized reoccurring instructions might be, transfer $800 from Money Market to Checking on the 15^th of every month for the next 6 months.

The Schedule transfer allows the member to set a future date for a transfer to occur. Many times these scheduled transfers can also behave like a Reoccurring transfer.

Financial Center Online offers a variety of options for accomplishing transfers. One-time (Manual) Transfer, Scheduled Transfer, Reoccurring Scheduled Transfer, Recurring Transfer, and Automated Distribution. The next post will discuss each of these options and where they may be most beneficial in managing account balances.

The first piece of this puzzle is determining what events and thresholds should trigger a notification. This notification will alert that action may be necessary in an account. Both balance and transaction thresholds should be used to monitor and manage account balances. Balance thresholds notify that a transfer may be required. Transaction thresholds notify when predicted or unusual activity has occurred in the account.

To manage account balances you need to know when an account has excess funds and when an account no longer has sufficient funds. The selection of the threshold amounts is based on a variety of factors.

• What are the regular deposit frequency(s) and amount(s)?
• What are the regular withdraw frequency(s) and amounts(s)?
• What are the minimum balances for the accounts?
• What minimum balances should be kept in the accounts?
• Are there any critical bills (mortgage payment) that auto-debit the accounts?

For the checking account we need real-time alerts when:

• A transaction takes my checking account balance below a set dollar amount.
• A deposit occurs that is larger than a set dollar amount.
• A withdraw occurs that is larger than a set dollar amount
• A transaction takes my account balance over a set dollar amount.

Most of the same alert notifications (with different dollar thresholds) are setup on both the savings and money market accounts. All these alert types are supported in Financial Center Online.

These alerts keep you informed about your balances so you can monitor and take action when necessary.

With the proliferation of online banking, the question is no longer “Can I manage my account balances?” Now the question is “What is the best way to manage my account balances?” My short answer is: it depends on what your online system will allow.

I have some experience with other online systems, but I know Financial Center Online the best. So I’ll be focusing on using the features of Financial Center Online to maximize account balance management.

There are really only three essential tools in balance management:

• Balance Monitoring/Alerting
• Transaction Monitoring/Alerting
• Transfers – One-time and Reoccurring

Through a series of posts, I’ll illustrate how these tools can be used together to manage the balances in an account with a savings, checking, and money market. Our test member uses a savings as a short-term savings vehicle and a money market account as a longer-term savings vehicle. The use of multiple accounts is to provide discipline in the management of funds. Simply put, since the money is not all in one checking account the member needs to think about purchases before they are made, providing a level of discipline in spending habits. Also this segregation of funds requires timely record keeping to prevent unexpected balance short-falls.

It is tax season. For some of us the work is done, our taxes filed, and the refund is already in our checkbook. For others it is a chore we dread and put off until the last moment. I could not procrastinate this year, I have a senior with plans for college in the fall. That meant completing taxes and the FAFSA before March.

During 2008, I chose a high-deductible health plan and opened a Health Savings Account (HSA) at my credit union (Finance Center Federal Credit Union).

While preparing my taxes I found that, post-tax contributions to HSAs are tax deductible, like IRA contributions. I computed the difference between the Maximum allowed HSA contribution ($5,800.00 family plan) and the amount of contributions made during 2008. In my case, all of these dollars were pre-tax payroll deductions (reported on my W-2 - box 12 code W). So, this is what I could still add to my HSA for 2008 as a post-tax contribution. Not only that but I have until April 15^th to make this contribution for the prior year to my HSA.

Good News! Since this difference was smaller than my expected tax refund, I can put this portion of my tax refund into my HSA, add the dollar amount to Form 8889, which carries to page one of my 1040 and further reduces my AGI (Adjusted Gross Income). That means I will owe less in taxes and get back an even larger refund.

Because the HSA contribution lowers your AGI and increases your refund, this technique can still work even if the original difference computation is not smaller than the expected refund. In some circumstances, the refund increase is sufficient to fund the entire contribution.

A similar strategy can be used with traditional IRA contributions. Be sure you have sufficient cash flow to fund these contribution before April 15^th. If you file your taxes soon enough the IRS refund can be the source of the cash flow.