In most high-tech businesses. the appellation "pioneer" is used quite freely, but Richard P. Yanak truly fits the bill.
"When you're looking back on your life, it's nice to be able to point to a first something no one else did before you." Mr. Yanak said recently, reflecting on his 20 years in the electronic banking industry.
Mr. Yanak, president of New England's largest automated teller machine network, Yankee 24, has actually had two "firsts" in his career.
As part of a team of researchers for Boeing Corp.. he helped design a forerunner to modern-day video teleconferencing systems.
But what is perhaps more significant. Mr. Yanak, 58, also founded the nation's first automated teller machine network. The year was 1972.
Mr. Yanak "is one of maybe five or six people who go all the way back to the absolute beginning of what we now call shared networks," said Richard Speer, chairman of the Atlanta-based consultancy Speer & Associates.
The shared network Mr. Yanak founded, called the Exchange, was organized as a response by 18 community banks to the hundreds of automated teller machines that Seattle First National Bank installed in Washington State in the early 1970s.
Widely Imitated
In subsequent years, this response to competitive pressures was repeated in other areas of the country. NYCE, New York's dominant network, was formed by the city's retail banks as a means for competing with Citibank's monolithic ATM presence. Likewise, the Magic Line network was formed in response to NBD Bancorp's vastly spread ATMs in Michigan.
By the mid-1980s, more than 100 networks dotted the United States, each with its own logo, each searching for ways to increase the number of ATM transactions it could switch between financial institutions.
But as bank mergers increased in the early 1990s, it wasn't surprising that shared-ATM business would also undergo consolidation. Last summer, four eastern banks combined their ATM networks to form the giant Electronic Payment Services Inc. And 13 more institutions are talking about a similar venture in the Midwest.
Consolidation Trend
In all, about 20 networks have merged or disappeared in the 1990s, and the trend is expected to continue until about 20 large networks remain.
Inevitably, Mr. Yanak understands, the consolidation will come knocking at the door of Yankee24. the New England network that he joined in 1987.
Their have been rumors for years now that Yankee is close to becoming a part of NYCE. More recently, EPS has been named as a suitor.
But rather than be depressed at the prospect of having his company swallowed by a larger entity, Mr. Yanak's experience enables him to see the consolidation as part of a continuum.
"We are entering a new stage of the evolution of the EFT business," he said. "The industry is moving into a million new areas - [debit] point of sale, home banking, telecom - and it's not surprising that it's seeking a structure that will support that growth."
Mr. Yanak, an Army veteran and 1959 graduate of Seattle University, said there is little doubt that Yankee24 will become a part of a larger network.
But how and when that will happen is still unclear. Past deals with NYCE have been held up by a concern that Yankee24 members would be ceding the strategic direction of their electronic banking programs to large New York banks that dominate NYCE's ownership.
The two networks have also discussed alternative agreements that would improve operational efficiencies by pooling transaction processing and switching into a single data center. Such an agreement would allow both ATM marks to survive in the short term.
"That would only be an interim step," Mr. Yanak said. "In the long term, the number of brands must be reduced."
New Products
In the meantime, Yankee24 has been producing new products that members demand. The most recent and successful is the debit point of sale program, which in two years has grown to account for over 10% of the network's total transaction volume.
And despite the persistent rumors that the network is not long for this world, Mr. Yanak continues to fill the role of visionary.
"Networks have got to be looking toward the day when all banking transactions can be done from wherever a consumer happens to be," said Mr. Yanak.
