Canada cash goes plastic

Canada's paper money is going plastic, the Harper government announced in its 2010 budget last week, reports The Globe and Mail.

Starting in late 2011, the Bank of Canada will replace the country's cotton-paper bank notes - prone to wear and tear - with synthetic polymer ones that last two to three times as long.

These far-hardier bills won't be indestructible - a flame is still a threat, for instance - but they will be virtually waterproof, meaning Canadians need worry no longer if their bank notes go through the washing machine by mistake.

Bank Technology News has recognised Union Savings Bank's integration of 3VR technology with the Cleartouch bank platform from Fiserv as the most successful community bank IT initiative of 2009, states CNNMoney.

The integration allows Union Savings to connect data from teller operations directly with the 3VR video surveillance platform to protect its organisation and account holders from fraud.

The combined solution enables the bank to tag and thereby pinpoint video footage for individual transactions or accounts, dramatically cutting the time needed to research and identify fraudulent transactions and facilitating immediate response and crime prevention.

Gangs are often behind debit card fraud, such as the sophisticated skimming operation that was exposed in Canada in recent days, says a former commercial crimes investigator with the RCMP, writes The Daily Gleaner.

"Everybody is involved in this, but probably street gangs are the biggest participants," said retired staff-sergeant Terry Keighley. Criminals with the technical savvy to pull of the hi-tech crimes travel the country perpetrating the crime, he said.

This scam occurs when a PIN pad or an automated banking machine is tampered with. Fraudsters then use the compromised machine to steal information from a debit card's magnetic strip and the customer's personal identification number