Nice Systems (NASDAQ: NICE), today announced that Portugal's largest private bank, Millennium bcp, has launched production of the Nice Situator open situation management solution to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of its physical security monitoring and response.
The NICE solution is enabling the bank to reduce operational costs and optimize the alignment of its corporate physical security policies, standards and procedures across hundreds of branches in Portugal. NICE partner Diebold Portugal is the system integrator for the project.
Vitor Monteiro, head of Physical Security at Millennium bcpsaid, "Deployment of the NICE Situatorsolution allows Millennium bcp to fully integrate and centralize the bank's various physical security systems. Our newcontrol room operation was built through the integration of NICE Situator in our IT systems architecture and implementing smarter situation management solutions. Thereare manybenefits. This integrationprovides us with importantoperational cost savings. At the same time, the solution's advanced workflows and rules enables us to reduce the number of false alarms, for greater efficiency and effectiveness. Thanks to Situator we are able to track and enforce compliance with the bank's policies and regulations, provide reports to the management and support constant improvement. We have been consistently impressed withthe excellent support we receive from theNICE team, and how easy it makes implementing the bank's procedures."
The security situation management needs of banks are many. Among these are intrusion, invalid access control and tampering, robberies, alarm panel communications failure and 'Early Disarm' and 'Late Arm' Situations. With NICE Situator, Millennium bcp addresses these situations by receiving automatic alarms with information on what has occurred. The NICE solution does this by leveraging the existing Alarm Panels infrastructure and extracting additional intelligence from already available data. The solution also automatically connects a call between control room personnel and the appropriate individual at the relevant branch. It also automatically places calls to external agencies if needed, such as local city police. Furthermore, it presesents step-by-step instructions to the bank's security personnel on how to handle the situation.
Shlomi Cohen, President of NICE EMEA said, "We are pleased to enable this leading bank with security situation management capabilities tailored specifically for financial institutions and branches. By enabling automated situation management, response planning and analysis in real time the bank ensures the safety of its clients and personnel..Additionally, leveraging its expertise in complex software security system integration, our Partner Diebold Portugal was key for the success of this project at Millenniumbcp."
Mr.Cohen continued, "The complete portfolio of NICE solutions when leveraged together, can further help banks enhance fraud prevention by leveraging information about suspicious employee transactions identified by the NICE Actimize anti-fraud solutions with physical security information such as access control and video surveillance. Thus, a complete and accurate picture of internal fraud is provided allowing for early detection and effective investigation."
For Millennium bcp, NICE Situator is deployed on Millennium bcp's corporate network and monitors approximately 900 branches and other buildings throughout Portugal. The NICE solution is integrated with a wide array of bank sensors and security systems, including video surveillance, access control, intrusion and fire alarm panels, fire detection systems, as well as VoIP, text messaging and email gateways. NICE Situator merges data from these sensors into a common operating picture, analyzing and correlating this information, then applying standard operating procedures and automated response plans.