Midday Update: PNC Cleaning, Consolidating Data

PNC Bank of Pittsburgh is attempting to gain control over one of the banes of managing customer relationships: duplicate and inaccurate information.

The PNC Financial Services Group Inc. subsidiary has signed a licensing agreement with Trillium Software, a division of San Antonio-based Harte-Hanks Inc., to consolidate and update customer information bankwide.

Eventually, employees in all of seven lines of business will have access to freshened data.

"We want to make sure that no matter what area of the bank customers access, we have information readily available to provide them with the right answers," said Deborah R. Smith, vice president of marketing information for PNC Bank.

PNC began implementing Trillium's data-cleansing software in July to correct misspellings and remove duplicate records. Before that, a staff of about 80 people handled such tasks manually.

"This will reduce the number of duplications as well as the number of people needed," Ms. Smith said.

By next April, PNC expects to implement a bankwide communication system that will connecting the seven business lines. That means users will be able to get information from the mainframe system without having to dial up separate screens for different applications.

The result will be "a more consistent information feed so that we are consistent in the way we handle our customers," Ms. Smith said.

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