Retail Banking: Online Resources To Offer PC System For Home Banking

Online Resources and Communications Corp. announced plans to offer home banking and bill payment services through personal computers.

The McLean, Va.-based company is best known for its phone-based financial services. Chief executive Matthew P. Lawlor said the PC offering is part of an effort to expand services beyond that realm.

"The integration of PC home banking software is the next logical step in our growth," he said.

Online plans to make Windows-based software available to financial institutions in the fall.

The software is Online's nod to predictions that demand will exist for a wide range of access device options for home banking and bill payment.

Mr. Lawlor said the software will integrate with popular financial management packages such as Intuit Inc.'s Quicken, Microsoft Corp.'s Money, and Meca Software Inc.'s Managing Your Money.

Online's package would join a crowded field of home banking software.

A number of institutions have aligned themselves with Intuit, Microsoft, or both to provide PC home banking based on their software packages.

In addition, NationsBank Corp. - which, in conjunction with BankAmerica Corp., recently acquired Meca - plans to issue by yearend its own brand of PC banking based on Managing Your Money.

Despite this competition, Online Resources feels it has an advantage because its software does not lock a bank or its customers into using any one financial management package.

An existing Quicken user, for example, can use Online Resources' system for home banking and then download the transactions into the financial management software for further analysis.

A user can also transfer any existing payee information from the financial management software into the Online Resources system so that no rekeying is necessary.

Over time, Online Resources plans to make the interface between its software and personal financial packages more transparent to users, said Joe Koshuta, Online Resources' director of product planning.

He added that this integration relieves a bank from having to deal with multiple software vendors to allow customers to use the financial management package of choice.

No banking customers for the Online Resources system have been announced.

NationsBank, which is already using Online Resources' ScreenPhones to provide home banking services, has no plans at this time to use the PC home banking software, said a bank spokesman.

All of Online Resources' interactive financial transaction services operate from a common data base, so that if a consumer makes a transaction on a screen phone, it is reflected in the account information accessed via telephone or PC.

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