NCR network concept was conference star.

DENVER -- The American Bankers Association's National Operations and Automation Conference, held here this week, had a lot of sizzle and some steak as vendors promoted several new products, some not ready to emerge from the lab.

Among the vendors that showed new and expected products were NCR Corp., Dayton, Ohio; Stockholder Systems Inc., Norcross Ga.; Formation Technologies Inc., Denver; and SDM International Inc., Fuquay-Varina, N.C.

Perhaps the highest-profile announcement was made by NCR, a unit of the American Telephone & Telegraph Co., which introduced what it called Financial Enterprise Architecture, a mix of technology still under development that will be packaged with existing NCR products.

Products marketed as elements of the Financial Enterprise Architecture include NCR's 7780 image check-processing system and the NCR 5682 customer-service workstation - a sort of automated teller machine that displays information but doesn't dispense cash.

Also part of the package are AT&T Smartphones, souped-up telephones with display screens that consumers use for home banking.

For Selling at Remote Sites

NCR's vision is that banks would use some of these products to build control centers with experts who could pitch financial services to bank customers in remote branches or kiosks. Experts in the control centers would talk to prospective customers using videoconferencing technology.

But the computer equipment needed to support videoconferences won't be available until the middle of 1993. In the demonstration, NCR used low-tech equipment similar home video-camera systems that wouldn't be practical for use in an actual bank, company technicians confirmed.

Huntington National Bank is testing the NCR videoconferencing technology and expects to have a prototype up and running by the end of 1992, said Jan Tyler, product development manager at the Columbus, Ohio-based bank.

Transaction-Risk Software

Stockholder Systems Inc., a software company owned by Nynex Corp., added more sizzle to the conference by promoting a new software product it plans to release next year that would analyze transaction risk for all services provided by a bank.

The software, which has not yet been named, will compile transaction information from all bank operations, including checking, electronic funds transfer, foreign exchange and loans, into a central database. Banks could then use the software to monitor and control financial risks assumed throughout their business.

"Banks have bits and pieces of this information now, but they have trouble getting it all together into a single system," said Beverly Kennedy, a Stockholder Systems vice president and product manager for the new risk analysis software.

Ms. Kennedy added that the new risk analysis software will have components that run both on mainframes and personal computers over a network, and will cost about $500,000 in a typical configuration.

Among the other vendors that introduced new products were Appro Systems Inc., Atlanta, which trotted out new software called Apro Auditor, that automates loan compliance.

SDM International, Raleigh, N.C., introduced new mainframe-based software, called LinkPlus, that manages communications and record-keeping for automated clearing house, electronic data interchange and electronic funds transfer processing.

Formation Technologies, Denver, said it plans to introduce a new version of its Pedestal Platform Automation and Loan Origination system in the fourth quarter that will run on personal computers equipped with International Business Machines Corp.'s OS/2 operating system.

The OS/2 version will be similar to the version of the Pedestal that runs on the less-pouwerful MS-DOS operating system, except the new version will be able to perform a numnber of tasks at the same time, and will sport an easier-to-use graphics interface.

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