A tool to expedite executive decisions: Newtrend software puts bank reports on a PC-accessible data base.

Newtrend Software Puts Bank Reports on a PC-Accessible Data Base

Newtrend has begun selling software that lets bank executives use the newest personal computer technology to read and understand reports on their institutions' operations.

By making bank managers better informed, the Orlando-based company's Executive Powers product is intended to help streamline the decision-making process.

"To me, this is a bankers' dream come true," said Rodney G. Baker, the product manager for the software at Newtrend.

Can Create Charts, Graphs

Executive Powers consists of software running on a Unisys Corp. computer that takes data normally printed out on paper by standard bank reporting systems and puts them into a computer data base.

Bank executives can then use personal computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system to tap into this data base and create bar graphs or fever charts tracking bank operations, or to create more detailed textual reports.

Newtrend acquired the Executive Powers software in May from a a small, privately held software company in Detroit.

Newtrend's first target customers are users of Newtrend's Miser2 core computing software for thrifts. Like Executive Powers, Miser2 runs on Unisys computers.

Will Market to All Banks

Early next year, Newtrend plans to begin marketing Executive Powers to users of Newtrend's Infopoint commercial-bank software, which runs on International Business Machines Corp. mainframes.

Later in the year, Newtrend plans to sell Executive Powers to all banks, even those that don't use any Newtrend software, and even to companies in other industries.

"It gets our foot in the door" at other banks, said Robert O. Fohl, a Newtrend senior vice president.

Newtrend, a privately held partnership of Computer Associates International Inc., and Newtrend Group, supplies computer services and software to about 500 financial institutions, and had net income of $8.7 million last year on revenues of $77 million.

Two Miser2 users - Savings Bank of Manchester, a $700 million-asset thrift in Connecticut, and First Federal Financial Services Corp., a $635 million asset thrift in Wooster, Ohio - are in the early stages of testing the Executive Powers software.

The Executive Powers software costs banks between $22,000 and $90,000 to license, depending on the number of accounts at the institution. This price includes a license to let one personal computer use Executive Powers to create reports on bank operations.

Banks will have to pay an additional $3,000 licensing fee for each additional personal computer they set up to run reports off Executive Powers, Mr. Fohl said.

M. Arthur Gillis, an independent bank technology consultant in New Orleans, said that bankers have been interested in using software like Executive Powers for years.

Too Costly for Small Banks?

This class of software, which technologists call an executive information system, is intended to provide a more elegant way of analyzing operational reports than the standard practice of looking at computer printouts, or entering data into electronic spreadsheets.

But Mr. Gillis said that Executive Powers might be too expensive to be of much interest to smaller institutions.

"In the community bank arena, it's got to be cheap," Mr. Gillis said. "And by cheap, I mean a few hundred dollars."

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