Long Island Savings Bank has completed a platform automation project aimed at improving service in the bank's investment and loan areas.
Under a $2.5 million contract with International Business Machines Corp., the Melville, N.Y.-based bank installed 43 IBM servers and over 200 OS/2 workstations, linking 37 branches in Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk counties.
The new technology allows bank employees who sell retail bank products, such as certificates of deposit and loans, to access a customer's account on a desktop personal computer screen and guide the customer through a series of product choices.
"Our goal is to serve our customers better by providing our banking staff with the management tools to automatically access the full range of a customer's accounts," said Russell Lipari, vice president of operations and communications at the $5 billion-asset bank.
The bank also will introduce new automation at its teller stations later this year.
Replacing so-called "dumb" terminals - those that rely on a host computer for their processing power - with personal computers is a trend at most of the nation's bank branches.
A 1995 technology in banking report from Ernst & Young and the American Bankers Association predicts that by 1997 82% of teller stations will have intelligent workstations, an increase of 61% from 1994. The percentage of intelligent platform stations will rise from 75% in 1994 to 98% in 1997, the report said.
Banks are embracing the personal computer at the branch level because its flexibility is well suited to the sales-oriented retail culture many institutions are trying to create.
In addition, PC's typically allow for a friendlier user interface than "dumb" terminals.
By delivering more detailed information about customers in an easy-to- use format, banks hope to make the most of the waning number of occasions in which they have direct contact with customers.
"The beauty of this system is that the account opening and cross-selling processes are now completely automated," said Mr. Lipari. "Before, we actually used typewriters."
Long Island Savings' platform solution is an integration of several vendors' products.
The new system's software hails from Broadway & Seymour Inc. of Charlotte, N.C.. The software has been customized to give the bank access to client account information and marketing applications.
The bank also is using AT&T workstations and Microsoft Office software. Microsoft Office gives bank officers the ability to author forms and business correspondence.
Added to these systems is IBM's "distributed console access facility," which allows the bank's home office to directly support users and to dial into branches to make file changes.
"The main advantage of having this integrated, client-server solution is the ability to get all the raw data out to the workstations, and present it to the bank officers in such a way as to give them an immediate customer perspective," said Bob Lamb, IBM network designer and project architect.
"If someone comes in to review a checking account, the bank officer can look at the customer's entire portfolio. If the officer sees that a CD is coming up for renewal, the officer can suggest another investment that may prove more beneficial to the customer."
