Nuestro Banco goes Latino

Citing North Carolina's rapidly expanding Hispanic community, which by some estimates is growing 20% annually, Nuestro Banco has partnered with IT to handle online components of the bank's Hispanic growth strategy, reports Portdata.

ITI will handle electronic processing services for Nuestro Banco, and was chosen because of its familiarity with the Hispanic community and ability to service Latino clientele, according to sources at Nuestro Banco.

Among ITI's Hispanic-specific services are an array of solutions including Spanish-language Internet and telephone banking software, online branding services, and a Hispanic banking toolkit that provides insight into cultural differences and common barriers to banking for Hispanics.

Nationwide Building Society is blazing a trail in the financial services industry by becoming one of the first lenders to replace its outdated legacy systems with off-the-shelf software, says ComputerWeekly.com.

Other building societies and banks, with systems that are up to 40 years old, are looking to follow its lead.

Nationwide last month replaced its legacy systems with a version of SAP's core banking platform and a service-orientated architecture (SOA) as part of a £300m business transformation programme.

OCBC Bank has in the past six months seen a monthly average of 200 new customers signing up for its Easi-ProCheck, the country's first cheque-writing software service, reports the star online.

Head of cash management and custody Lucas Chew Yee Lim said the recent trend was significant for the software that was launched two years ago.

According to Chew, the target segment for this service ranged from small and medium enterprises to corporations that handle bigger volumes of cheques.