CU*Answers announces the roll-out of a new service to help clients complete third party due diligence on CU*Answers and partners involved with the cuasterisk.com network.
The “Risk Management Report Generator” is a new Internet-based product which allows CU*Answers, Xtend, Audit Link, WESCO Net, and Lender*VP clients to complete their due diligence on services and products purchased from these CUSO’s. The creation of this product stems from the requirements put forth by the NCUA instructing credit unions to perform due diligence on third party vendor relationships. This tool allows credit unions to keep vital contract information along with legal opinions associated with the correlating contracts. The questions proposed in the Report Generator are modeled directly from the NCUA Supervisory letter and the system will store the assessments. Each year when the assessment is up for review, an e-mail notification will be sent to the CEO.
According to Jim Vilker, cuasterisk.com Network Manager, “Third party due diligence is definitely hitting the radar of regulators and auditors. This is a full vendor management system for credit unions that partner with the cuasterisk.com network. This application allows credit unions to not only complete their due diligence electronically, but to also view how their peers completed the assessment.”Randy Karnes, CEO of CU*Answers stated “We put a stake in the ground at our 2008 Leadership Conference committing to have the lowest cost of compliance in the industry not only for users of our flagship core data processing system, but for all of the services we offer.” This tool is free to use by any credit union purchasing services from the CUSO’s involved in the cuasterisk.com network.
WESCO Net, a Grand Rapids, MI based leader in managed network services says their national management network provides comprehensive technology asset inventory and management services which can help credit unions save money, maintain compliance, and simplify disaster recovery efforts.
“Many credit unions are challenged because their networks have experienced organic growth over time and they don’t always have an understanding of what is happening at each PC, where bottlenecks are, or what software is deployed on given workstations,” says Matt Sawtell of WESCO Net. WESCO Net’s asset tracking solution, part of their Complete Care network management solution, provides credit unions with centralized on-demand reporting of all their technology assets.
According to WESCO Net, their asset tracking technology provides complete knowledge of every PC’s hardware configuration, performance, and software inventory. The significance is on three fronts: first it assists with compliance efforts because the credit union now has an understanding of every software component installed on a workstation. Unauthorized software can be removed which can increase network security. Second, this information is used to help credit unions plan their future technology investments by eliminating the guesswork and then projecting when a given workstation will reach a capacity threshold based on usage history. This information will help determine if a workstation is a candidate for an upgrade or replacement, and whether or not it could be redeployed within the enterprise. Finally, accurate asset management simplifies disaster recover planning as the credit union will always have an up to date workstation and server hardware and software inventory and will know exactly what they need to replace in the event of a disaster.
The asset management service is included in WESCO Net’s Complete Care network management solution at no additional cost.
We are proud to announce the launch of a new and improved client marketing site http://marketing.cuanswers.com. It leverages the power of a hybrid pages/posts design based on our SiteControl platform to make marketing offerings easier to navigate to and search out. It also offers a simplified system for ordering by campaign or a la carte . Enjoy!
Those of you using our SiteControl platform will benefit from all the latest enhancements in the latest version of WordPress 2.8 that SiteControl is based on. Among the new improvements are faster overall admin section speeds and an improved widgets interface. For the full list of changes check out the official WordPress 2.8 announcement. We’ll be updating sites this week and the transition should be seamless.
Smashing Magazine has a nice write up on one of the eternal questions of Web Design – Fluid Width or Fixed Width. Even we have gone back and forth on this topic at CU*Answers Web Services. Currently we are in the fixed width camp, but we’re fickle enough that our minds will change again.
