Keycorp testing video banking terminals in Ohio.

As part of a plan to broaden its services outside the branch, Keycorp has begun to test video banking terminals at four Ohio locations.

These revved-up automated teller machines -- similar to those being employed or tested by other large banks -- feature two-way, full-motion video cameras and touch-screen keypads that connect consumers to centralized customer service sites.

Officials at the Cleveland-based company are using these systems for a 60-day trial in hopes of concentrating cross-selling efforts and keeping up with the more upscale and technology-savvy customers who are quickly embracing these unconventional banking options.

"If you look at the demographics, it's the emerging affluent with above average median income that want this," said David Campbell, Keycorp's senior vice president for card services and electronic banking.

The self-service terminals, dubbed Key Connection, promise consumers the ability to access accounts on their own, while still allowing them to talk to someone live. Service representatives help the users handle simple functions -- such as opening new accounts, applying for loans, or reordering checks -- and sell products and services as well.

The installation of the Key Connection terminals -- which are all being piloted at branches in well-to-do Ohio neighborhoods in Canton, Mentor, Hudson, and Stow -- is the bank's first stride into an area that has only recently become a serious priority for Keycorp.

The increased stress being placed on nontraditional delivery systems and the technology to back them up has sprung primarily from Society Corp., which merged into Keycorp earlier this year.

Mr. Campbell came from the old Society side, where he handled bank systems and information technology since 1986. There he reported to Allen Gula Jr., the Society executive who has emerged as the top technology person at the merged company.

Society had focused on its telephone services for the two years preceding the deal with Keycorp, Mr. Campbell said. But soon after the companies came together, executives decided to examine advanced services more closely and installed Mr. Campbell as head of the new electronic banking initiative.

"We're not shifting focus entirely from brick and mortar, we've just begun to look at more customer segments," Mr. Campbell said. "It's not going to replace a branch -- at least 50% of our customers still want to work face to face."

Though he conceded that until recently such services have not taken "a preeminent role on the corporate agenda," Mr. Campbell says Keycorp has done much to make up ground in the past several months.

The terminals were provided by AT&T Global Information Solutions Inc. -- which also helped underwrite Keycorp's test as an added incentive -- but the bank created the interactive application that runs on them. The program is written in a Visual Basic language that incorporates animated graphics. Mr. Campbell claims the system is more user-friendly than similar systems used by rivals.

Unlike other banks' interactive services, he added that the Keycorp model focuses more on the connection between the customer and the service representative and less on the sophisticated transactions that other terminals like these can provide.

Earlier this year, Huntington Bancshares, another Ohio-based banking company, launched its own foray into remote banking via interactive kiosks. Huntington installed its two-way video terminals -- also developed by AT&T -- in Columbus and Dayton in March.

If this pilot goes well for Keycorp, the bank plans to broaden its use of these terminals and extend installation outside of the branches. The bank also plans to provide PC-based home banking within the next year, Mr. Campbell said, alluding to possible alliances in this area.

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