In a move toward reaching its goal of offering home banking and other new services, Bisys Group Inc. has named Suzanne Wright to the newly created position of vice president of electronic banking.
Ms. Wright, who has 20 years of experience in cash management, branch automation, automated teller machines, and other areas, is responsible for a range of electronic banking services expected to be offered to Bisys' bank customers within the next two years.
Ms. Wright's first task is managing the introduction of the automatic teller machine and card management platforms before the end of 1994.
"We have about 300 banks that we provide ATM services for through a third party that we will be bringing onto our system," said Ms. Wright, who began working at the Houston-based outsourcing company on June 1. "We would like to be able to offer point of sale services and also home banking and bill paying services" during the first half of 1995.
Initially, Bisys will offer a telephone-based home banking system. Later applications may include screen phones and personal computers.
"I don't know what is going to be popular in the home," said Ms. Wright, who reports to Anthony M. Ficarra, Bisys' chief information officer. "The way that we are structuring our platform, we are preparing to support any device type."
In recent months, the company has announced its intention to offer more services to its customers, most of which are community banks and thrifts that run on Bisys' Totalplus data processing system.
"A lot of the banks that we deal with don't have the sales staff or back-office staff to support their [consumer and corporate] customers with the kind of products and services we can provide," said Ms. Wright.
She said her main goal is to provide those small bank customers with the electronic tools to compete against larger rivals.
"We will have the back-end system to provide that support," she said. "We will also provide any front end support, such as sales and training."
Ms. Wright's most recent job was at Perot Systems, Dallas, where she did consulting and project support in electronic funds transfer, cash management, and branch automation.
Before that, she worked at two banks in Houston, Texas Commerce Bank and First City National Bank.
"What's new about this position is it kind of brings together all of the different areas that I have worked in," said Ms. Wright.
"It used to be that cash management was specifically geared toward commercial customers, electronic funds transfer was geared toward consumers.
"Now with home banking you're talking about a lot of products" that cross traditional lines, she said.
"For instance, as a consumer I ought to be able to stop a payment on a check, just as well as a commercial customer. I want to get an account reconciliation, just like a commercial customer."
In another move, Bisys announced that John M. Blakely has been named vice president of distributed systems. Mr. Blakely, who most recently worked at the data processing arm of Norwest Corp., will direct development of Bisys' clientserver products for financial
