Technology chief aims to iron out Swift's kinks.

The recent appointment of Kallash C. Khanna, the first American to head global technology for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift, is symbolic of the new corporate culture at the Brussels-based payments network.

Mr. Khanna, 54, has spent many years in international banking, at CIT Group - formerly a unit of Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co. - and in running sophisticated networks, at American Airlines and TWA.

His appointment "shows that Swift can look to the best qualified person, whatever his nationality," said Michael Urkowitz, head of Chase Manhattan Corp.'s Infoserv unit.

Viewed with Suspicion

As recently as two years ago, Swift was viewed with suspicion by many of its biggest members - particularly in the United States - who felt that some of the organization's activities were directly competitive with businesses run by banks themselves. "Swift followed Swift's agenda." said one banker, who asked not to be identified.

All that has changed over the past two years, with the appointment of Leonard Schrank, also an American, as the organization's chief executive. Mr. Schrank paved the way to better personal relations with member banks by visiting them and asking about their concerns.

|A Critical Role'

Now Mr. Khanna has the mandate to smooth out the performance of Swift's services, and get them to members faster. The post is important for member banks, who will look to Mr. Khanna to keep the network - which handles 2 million messages per day - running as reliably as a Swiss watch.

Mr. Khanna "plays a critical role in Swift's core mission," says Mr. Urkowitz.

What Swift lacks, Mr. Khanna say, is a "strong systems organization that is tightly coupled with marketing."

|Competitive Service Provider'

"The owners - the banks - are saying, |We want your rates and your service to be competitive," he says. "The whole company is getting geared as a competitive service provider rather than a captive utility."

The lead time for products to get to market "has got to get dramatically shorter," said Mr. Khanna. A process that now takes three to four years must be whittled down to one to two years, he said.

One of the tasks he faces in the short term is improving the performance of the Accord system, which allows banks to automatically execute trades through a matching system. The product has been more successful than Swift anticipated, and it must be revised to handle higher volumes of transactions.

Broad Payments Experience

Mr. Khanna has plenty of payments experience to guide him. During 14 years in the airline industry, he was responsible for analytical systems, such as yield management, that helped American avoid double-booking while using a maximum number of seats.

He spent nine years at American Express Co., rising to vice president, corporate systems and technology.

From 1988 until this year, Mr. Khanna was senior vice president of systems and technology at CIT, now a joint venture of Kai-Ichi Kangyo Bank and Chemical Banking Corp.

Born in India

Mr. Khanna is as cosmopolitan as the organization he serves. Born and raised in Delhi, India, he attended a grammar school run by missionaries. His house was next door to one of the movie theaters that his father ran, and Mr. Khanna watched Indian movies during the week and Hollywood movies on the weekends. "That was our TV," he says.

After receiving a degree from Delhi University, he moved at age 21 to New York, where he earned his masters and doctorate in engineering at Columbia University.

Spends Summers in Oxford

Mr. Khanna and his wife have a house in Montclair, N.J., but have been spending summers in Oxford, England, where his wife, a professor of English literature at Montclair State University and a Renaissance scholar, can research her articles.

Now, Mr. Khanna lives in an apartment in downtown Brussels, and is taking a crash course in French.

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