Large Independent Bank Secures its IT Infrastructure with Novell

One of the largest independent banks in America, UMB Financial Corp., (UMB) is implementing Novell® identity management solutions on SUSE® Linux Enterprise Real Time to streamline user access and increase data security. A multi-bank holding company headquartered in Kansas City, MO, UMB has 3,500 employees and offers complete banking, asset management, health spending solutions and related financial services to both individual and business customers nationwide. With Novell, UMB has streamlined user access, reduced information technology (IT) administration time and improved its ability to comply with regulatory requirements.

"We are always looking for ways to make it more convenient for our customers to do business with us," said Kanon Cozad, senior vice president and director of Application Development at UMB. "We chose Novell because we needed solutions that could work across multiple platforms and systems and because they support open standards, which fits our business model. Novell is helping us keep a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining our customers as we now have the right foundation to keep up with bigger players in our market and stay ahead of smaller ones."

As a diverse financial holding company, UMB wanted to simplify customer access to its many different products and services. The IT staff was managing user identity information across dozens of systems in a complex environment, resulting in customers having to remember multiple log-in identifications (IDs) and passwords to access their accounts. UMB also operates in an extremely regulated industry and needed to ensure the security of confidential customer information.

UMB evaluated several identity management solutions before selecting Novell Identity Manager and Novell Access Manager™ to run on SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time. With assistance from Novell Consulting®, the bank has integrated its customer-facing applications for online banking and cash management, providing thousands of retail and commercial customers with a holistic view of their accounts. Novell Access Manager provides single sign-on access to all portal applications, which reduces passwords by 75 percent and password-related helpdesk requests by 30 percent.

With its Novell identity management solution running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time for maximum efficiency, UMB has streamlined user identity information for nearly 150,000 users, increasing the level of convenience for retail and commercial customers, as well as employees. Centralized user management has greatly improved data accuracy and security, while reducing IT administration time by 25 percent. Streamlining user management has also reduced the time spent on audits, thus improving the bank’s ability to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley and a myriad of other regulatory requirements.

"Making it convenient for customers to view and manage their accounts online with around the clock access is a key competitive advantage for financial services companies," said Jim Ebzery, senior vice president and general manager of Identity and Security at Novell. "Streamlining identity management helps UMB safeguard its data and improve customer access to information and services. The bank can also complete its audits significantly faster and react quickly to new regulatory requirements without business interruption."

For more information about Novell identity and Security solutions, visit www.novell.com/identityandsecurity. For more about SUSE Linux Enterprise Real Time, visit www.novell.com/products/realtime.