NYCE Catch: Bank of New York Signs on for Remote Banking

NYCE Corp. plans to announce today that it has won the business of providing remote banking services to Bank of New York Co.'s customers.

The agreement puts the automated teller machine network on the map as a supplier of home banking systems to major banks - in competition with the likes of Intuit Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Visa Interactive.

"We won on a combination of features, functionality, reliability, cost, and the right strategic vision," said Dennis Lynch, chief operating officer of NYCE, based in Woodcliff Lake, N.J.

It also helped that Bank of New York is one of the seven equity owners of NYCE, the second-largest U.S. regional network in terms of ATMs, with 17,000.

"If we can match and best the other service providers, it's in (the owners') best interests to bring the business to us," said Mr. Lynch, who is to become president and chief executive in October. That "builds value" in NYCE and increases its revenues.

Bank of New York is expected to be offering the remote services bankwide by the first quarter of 1997, after employee tests and selected customer rollouts later this year.

Bank of New York officials were not available Tuesday to elaborate.

Mr. Lynch said one lure of NYCE is the branding factor: the software is customized, presenting the bank's identity rather than a third-party's.

Also, the system will be relatively easy for members to implement because it is built on the existing ATM and point of sale infrastructure. ATM and debit card transactions will be posted for home banking users as they happen, a "real time" feature many other services will require time to match. "It's taken us 10 years to create all this connectivity," Mr. Lynch said.

While signing $51 billion-asset Bank of New York was a coup for NYCE, its system has been in a pilot since April with 25 employees of Canandaigua National Bank and Trust in upstate New York.

David Morrow, the $320 million-asset bank's senior vice president of operations, said the ATM infrastructure was "the overriding, compelling reason" to choose NYCE. He said the service is running smoothly and will be offered to all 20,000 Canandaigua National checking account customers this fall.

Mr. Lynch said NYCE expects to be a "premier provider (of home banking) in the Northeast," and will offer other regional networks the opportunity to resell the service to their clients.

Though NYCE's biggest owners, Citicorp and Chase Manhattan Corp., are already in home banking alliances with competing vendors, Mr. Lynch said such banks will be reevaluating in coming years to see if they have "the best long-term solutions." He said NYCE will have a "strong chance" to attract their business.

"NYCE has thrown its hat into the ring, (showing) it intends to be a serious player in this market," said Karen Epper, analyst, money and technology, at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass.

Ms. Epper called the NYCE system "a natural fit" for Bank of New York because of its ownership tie to the network.

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