Services for Credit Unions & Financial Institutions
Internet Computing Solutions has provided IT Support, Services, and Management for credit union since 1996 and have worked in the financial and insurance industries since 1983. We provide IT support services from the desktop to your internet firewall and beyond. We work with numerous Data Processors, like ERS, Bradford Scott/Sharetec, Share One, CU Answers, and others to ensure your computers are working and communicating properly with their systems through secure VPNS. We also work with vendors such as PSCU, FirstData, FIServ, and others to ensure your ATMs, and other equipment and services are working properly with them. We manage and maintain firewalls for all of these vendors for you as well. We provide network server and desktop/laptop support, installations, & procurement for all of our credit union customers. We also manage all these systems to make sure your CU stays compliant with your auditors and examiners. We take the burden of IT Management off your shoulders and work with you to keep your systems running smooth and secure.
We understand the credit union business and given our background and experience we have a unique understanding of the ever-changing regulations and requirements of providing IT Support Services & web site hosting for credit unions. We have worked directly with NCUA and independent auditors to ensure that our credit union systems & websites are within compliance guidelines.
Firewall Vulnerability Testing
With our vulnerability analysis of your internet firewall and associated IP addresses you will get the answers you need to know. Our report identifies all of the ports that are open and any of the 1,000’s of vulnerabilites that we test for, provides a description of the test for the open ports, attempts to identify any potential services running, and provides a synopsis, description, additional resource links, possible solutions, and risk factors, if applicable, all at a very affordable price! Click Here to Learn More and for our Monthly Special!
A Vulnerability Assessment is what most companies generally do, as the systems they are testing are live production systems and can’t afford to be disrupted by active exploits which might crash the system. Vulnerability Assessment is the process of identifying and quantifying vulnerabilities in a system. The system being studied could be a physical facility like a nuclear power plant, a computer system, or a larger system or network.
Vulnerability Assessment has many things in common with risk assessment. Assessments are typically performed according to the following steps:
1. Cataloging assets and capabilities (resources) in a system
2. Assigning quantifiable value and importance to the resources
3. Identifying the vulnerabilities or potential threats to each resource
4. Mitigating or eliminating the most serious vulnerabilities for the most valuable resources
This is generally what a security company is contracted to do, from a technical perspective, not to actually penetrate the systems, but to assess and document the possible vulnerabilities and recommend mitigation measures and improvements. Call Us Today! We Can Help!
Credit Union IT Policies
It’s examination time! Let us help you with your policies and/or answering your IT related questions. We have helped several credit union write their IT policies for their examiners. We can provide the following policies which we maintain the copyright to and maintain for you. The cost for each of these policies in bold are $800 each (listed in Bold). Annual updates and reviews are $160/year. This cost covers the amount of time each of these policies takes to create/review/update initially and in review each year. Let us know if you need assistance with any of these polices.
- Information Systems and Security Policies
- Disaster Recovery Policy/ Contingency Plan
- Pandemic InfluenzaPreparedness Plan
- Standard / Inhouse Risk Assessment
- Mobile Banking Risk Assessment
Learn More about our Credit Union Policies and Assessments service…
Virtual Board & Department Meetings
Transition your Board & Management Meetings to a paperless environment, save time & money, increase communications and operational efficiencies.
Are you tired of long email chains when discussing various topics with your Board Members, employees, or department managers, etc.? You have to search through 100’s of emails to piece together comments from multiple people, then search through their messages and for all the “Reply-To-All” messages. It can become a nightmare to sift through multiple email chains to find those comments. We have the Solution for that. Its a Bulletin Board System.
With a Bulletin Board System for your Business you can create a Discussion Group for your Board Meetings, Different Departments, Managers, Policies, etc. and give access to those Discussion groups to only those that need to participate in those discussions.
You can have on-going topics for Virtual Board Meetings, Department Meetings, Policy Documents, etc. where you can post your monthly, quarterly, and/or annual documents to discuss and vote on virtually. You can post company announcements, news items, status information, etc… and it will all be documented in a one location.
Instead of emailing documents back/forth & creating long email chains with copied responses, etc…, use a bulletin board to have those discussions. Get started today, Visit www.CUBBoard.com for more information or Call Us Today! We Can Help!
Website Hosting and Design
Internet Computing Solutions has provided web site & email hosting services for credit unions since 1999. The following are some of the topics and guidelines that need to be taken into account when creating and maintaining a credit union website.
Faculty, Equipment and Hosting Issues:
- Our hosting facilities meet the highest level of security requirements for providing web site hosting for Credit Unions. Including 24 hour monitoring by onsite technicians, electronic access control systems and security cameras, network and equipment redundancy, enterprise level uninterruptible power supplies, Liebert environmental control systems, and diesel generators for extended emergency power.
- Data backups are generated on a nightly basis. Also a backup is maintained “off-site” for disaster recovery purposes.
- Our email servers provide both spam filtering capbilities and virus protection and support the use of Secure Digital Certificates.
- We use 256-bit SSL certificates for website data encryption as needed.
- Website updates and changes, if maintained by us, are only accepted from designated persons and must be submitted in writing (via email or fax) to ensure the accuracy of the credit union information.
Internet Computing Solutions works with all of our credit union customers to ensure compliance. If and when we receive updated compliance information concerning any of our credit union websites, we review all of our credit union websites to ensure that all of them are compliant with the auditors. Below are some of the most common issues overlooked by most website hosting companies that simply don’t have the experience to ensure your website compliance.
Compliance Issues:
- ADA Compliance, we strive to follow ADA guidelines to improve basic menu navigation and labeling in order to provide a simple and effortless navigation experience for visitors using screen-reading software for Web browsing. We also use 3rd party services to enhance the experience for individuals with disabilities.
- Your Share insurance logos whether by NCUA or some other Share Insurance provider must be on your home page and on each page that mentions a deposit account.
- If your credit union does real estate loans, an equal (or fair) housing logo must be on the home page and on each page that mentions mortgages.
- If you state an interest rate for a loan, the APR must be stated. Annual Percentage Rate must be spelled out somewhere on the page. Most websites when stating rates will have a column for APR* then state *Annual Percentage Rate on the bottom of the page.
- If you advertise a Credit Card, the annual fee and other terms for each type must be disclosed, ie: the Schumer box must be displayed.
- For Home Equity Loans your HE Disclosures should be on the website and any variable rate features, loan origination and interest points must be disclosed.
- For All Loan Rates, the rate must be referenced as an APR and if you specify a term, a payment example page must be disclosed. You should create a seperate payment example page for evey loan type and term that you advertise.
- On Savings Rate Pages and Certificate Pages you should use the term “Dividend Rates” when describing your rates. DO NOT use “Certificate of Deposits” or “CD” anywhere. You must specify at least the APY and that the term APY stands for Annual Percentage Yield. You must specify Minimum Balance requirements and terms and should disclose on all Savings or Share pages that discusses paying dividends: “All savings and investment dividend rates other than certificates are variable rates.”
- For Online Loan Apps, you should determine if it complies with Reg. Z., Reg B., and W-9 requirements. Reg. Z pertains to credit cards, the Schumer box and mortgages that require certain disclosures. Reg B. regulates equal credit. You should not require a spouse as a comaker and do not omit child support and alimony language when requesting other income.
- If you place 3rd party links on your credit union website or offer services that are provided by a 3rd party link on your credit union website, you must first display an appropriate disclosure allowing the visitor to “opt-out” of being redirected to that 3rd party website.
Shared Email Calendars
Are you using MS Office 2012, 2016 or 2019 with Outlook for your email (not Office 365 or MS Outlook.com) and using the built-in Calendar program to manage your daily events, meetings , appointments etc.? Are you needing a Shared Calendar for your whole office or department that all/some of your users/employees can share? If yes, we can do that. Unless you’re using a Microsoft Exchange service, Outlook cannot on its own create and maintain a “Shared” calendar. It just doesn’t work on its own that way. It has to have a server based service to connect to for sharing.
We can create a secure Shared Calendar Account on our web service that allows you to share this calendar amongst whomever you want to have access to it. What we do is setup your own personalized Shared Web Calendar on our Secure Servers (CUSecureCal.com) such as: YourBiz@CusecureCal.com. Then help you set up the Outlook Plug-In program that can be configured to access it the shared calendar account securely. Visit www.CUSecureCal.com for more information or Call Us Today! We Can Help!
Financial Tools
Our Financial Articles are easy-to-understand information documents about related financial concepts and strategies that covers topics such as Estates & Trusts, Retirement, Tax Planning, Investing, Cash Management, and Risk Management. Use the articles to start learning how to manage your finances today! You can print these articles and create your own financial reference guide.
Our Financial Calculators are designed as educational tools to help you estimate answers to common financial questions. You can use these calculators to help you with Loans & Credit Cards, Estate Planning, Retirement & Inflation, Taxes & IRA’s, Saving & Investing, Cash Management, and Risk Management.
Our Financial Newsletters are designed to provide timely and helpful information on a wide variety of financial topics. You can use these newsletters to help you learn more about topics such as Insurance, IRA’s, Risk, Jobs, Buying & Selling, Mutual Funds, Credit, Long-Term Care, and many more topics. There are Six New newsletters every month. You can print these newsletters and create your own financial reference guide.
The articles and newsletters that are displayed have no advertisements so it’s a perfect resource for your members and is credit union friendly information. The cost for this service is $199 setup and $15 per month ($180 annually).
Please take a look at the demo site by clicking on the links below. If you are interested in including this service with your website give us a call or complete our feedback form and we will have your site set up TODAY! We will setup a page that will open the link to the calculators and news articles with your credit unions logo and header information on that page along with the calculators, newsletters and articles.
Secure Applications for Loans
If your online apps or forms are not SECURE, the auditors will see this as a major problem. We have a secure website application database program available. This database includes a loan app that your members can complete so that you can access it online, SECURELY via an SSL page. This database can also be used for other customer forms and apps as you need them. You don’t have to purchase an additional SSL certificate to use this service. We provide a shared SSL for your forms and online apps. There is no limit on the number of applications that you can receive through this database. If we host and maintain your website there is no additional monthly fee for this service.
Click Here to see a demo of the loan application. If you would like to see the Credit Union Management side of the database, please complete our feedback form and be sure to ask about the CU Loan Apps. The CU Management is where you would log in to view your apps and print them in a secure manner.
Loans, Savings, and Mortgage Calculators
Do your members need to be able to calculate a loan payment, or a mortgage payment with an amortization schedule, or calculate a periodic savings plan to help them plan for the future? The cost for these calculators is just a $149 one time setup fee with NO monthly cost. These are for our website hosting customers only. Would like to see an example? Visit one of our Customer Websites to take a look.
