Microsoft-based System Getting High Marks

A Microsoft Corp. executive calls it "the best Internet banking solution I've seen to date."

The president of a bank research and consulting firm calls it "sophisticated" and "very user-friendly."

It is Virtuabanker, a system developed by a four-person shop in Malaysia called NSys Consulting. The client/server software enables Internet-based transactions, from bill payments to stock trades.

Granted, the product is not in use yet. It is being installed and tested by an undisclosed bank in Malaysia, and banks in Singapore and the Philippines are said to be considering it.

The handful of U.S. technology experts who have evaluated the system give it high marks. Microsoft has recommended it to Chase Manhattan Corp., among others.

"We will be giving awards out soon for the best use of our technology, and these guys are the best I've seen so far," said Michael S. Dusche, Microsoft's industry manager for financial services.

"I don't want this to be a competitive advantage for the country of Malaysia only," he said. "I want this to be available to the rest of the world."

Virtuabanker is the brainchild of Nicholas See Yew Seong, 27, who spent a year assembling a front-end Internet banking system based on Microsoft technology.

At the heart of the system is what Mr. See calls a "personal banking agent," or intelligence device, which structures financial offerings to fit a customer's specified requirements. On the computer screen, this agent takes the form of a talking blue genie who speaks to customers and offers on-line guidance.

The genie can remind that a bill payment is due or point out that a stock price has reached a previously designated level. If the customer is not on-line, the genie can page a cellular phone.

Should the customer wish to look at products or rates outside a certain financial institution, the genie can sniff them out, Mr. See said.

"The personal banking agent helps manage a customer relationship better," said Mr. See, managing director of NSys Consulting. "It's also a good way for banks to cross-sell."

For example, he said, instead of giving a customer a "transaction error" message when he tries to make a payment greater than the amount of money in an account, the genie would suggest he apply for a line of credit and give information about loan products.

When the system is up and running, Mr. See said, customers will be able to download money from their accounts to a smart card by way of a Gemplus card reading device on a personal computer.

Another unusual feature of the system is that users could set up transactions off-line-say, while traveling on an airplane-then execute them in a batch when connecting to the Internet.

"I don't have to be constantly coupled to the Net," Mr. See said. "This is true mobility."

Mr. See said this feature would be particularly helpful for corporate banking clients, who often need to perform numerous transactions and can find themselves frustrated by the Internet's bandwidth constraints.

Anne Morgan Moore, president of Synergistics Research Corp. in Atlanta, evaluated the product at Microsoft's request. She was particularly impressed by the ability to work off-line, the smart card feature, and the intelligent agent. "It's well done and quite different from others I've seen," she said.

Mr. Dusche liked the genie. "Of all the times you would need something that's a social interface, Internet banking for nontechies is one of the best," he said.

Though Virtuabanker will connect to any back-end computer, Mr. See said, NSys Consulting is promoting the system with another Malaysian company, Hitech Niaga, which handles the processing. Together, they opened the Mall of Malaysia, a virtual shopping site, this month.

Cheong Yuk Wai, chief executive officer of Hitech Niaga, was a colleague of Mr. See's in Andersen Consulting's Asian practice.

Mr. Wai said the agent technology will make it easier for people to do business on the World Wide Web. Instead of having to plug in personal information the way they do when using Microsoft's Money or Intuit Inc.'s Quicken software, the agent fills in the blanks. Once a customer specifies a set of preferences, the agent can do the rest.

"It's a personal banking agent that talks to you, interacts with you, knows you," Mr. Wai said.

Mr. Dusche of Microsoft described the system as "a wake-up call for all the guys who are saying, 'We'll be on the Internet eventually.'"

"These guys are in Kuala Lumpur," he said. "Southeast Asia is going to have a more advanced Internet banking community than we will if we don't get busy."

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