The exhibit floor at Bank Administration Institute's retail delivery conference last week in New Orleans seemed as big, crowded, and confusing as the bank technology industry it brought together.
One could get lost in the five-acre maze of displays by more than 350 companies, from Acme-Wylie (a maker of automated teller machine housings) to XAC Automation (a Taiwanese manufacturer of card readers)-with bigger names like Diebold, EDS, IBM, Microsoft, and NCR along the way.
One could also get mixed up by the names themselves. As the population of provider companies has grown, names and trademarks in some cases have begun to run together.
One could get the false impression that there weren't quite as many vendors as advertised.
At an event that until a few years ago was known as the Automated Teller Machine Conference, six exhibitors' names began with ATM (none a machine producer): ATM Communications, ATM Couponing, ATM Exchange Inc., ATM Images, ATM Innovations, and ATM Parts Co.
A variation on that theme: Automated Technology Ma-chines Inc.
There were also Automated Financial Systems, Automated Integrated Solutions, and just plain Automated Solutions.
Others that might be hard to keep straight:
Verifone, Veritel, and (International) Verifact.
Cosmosbay (Corp.), Frisco-bay (Industries), and Bay Networks.
Innovasys, Innovative Systems, and Innovonics.
Checkfree and Checkmate.
Demos Consulting and Demoteller Systems.
S2 (Systems) and S1 (the latter is short for Security First Technologies).
Two companies each named Global, Mobile, Patterson, Phoenix, and Synergistics.
As people sought out Affinity (Technologies), Destiny (Software), Glory (Inc.), or Versatility (Inc.), they could drown in a sea of initials: BLT (Technologies), BMA/PPI (a training software firm), CFI (Proservices), CR (Systems), CSC, DEI, DPB, EPS, FICS, FTR, NSS, RDM, SDI, TBS, TVX, and TWS.
Coinstar is a machine for counting loose change.
Starcoin is a smart card system designed to make loose change unnecessary. A product of the German chip card company Giesecke & Devrient, Starcoin made its U.S. debut at Retail Delivery '97.
Described as a multiapplication electronic purse for closed systems, Starcoin could operate at corporate or university campuses, resorts, stadiums, and other self-contained communities. Besides payments, the system could accommodate personal identification details, keep track of loyalty points, and control access to secure areas, among other functions.
Starcos, the underlying operating system, has been deployed in Austria, Lithuania, and Ukraine. G&D America of Reston, Va., said it anticipates a U.S. introduction in early 1998.
Coinstar Inc. of Bellevue, Wash., which introduced its coin-counting machines at San Francisco-area supermarkets in 1992, reported its network has grown to more than 3,000. Consumers can have their coins sorted and counted at the rate of 600 a minute; the machine spits out a voucher that can be exchanged at the cashier for currency. Coinstar, which keeps a 7.5% commission, said transactions average $30 to $50 but one exceeded $8,000 (a $600 fee).
Coinstar machines have gone into banks in New Orleans, Louisville, Ky., and Cincinnati; savings institutions in Los Angeles; and credit unions in Tampa and Dayton, Ohio. Customers can take their cash vouchers to tellers to turn them into deposits.
Coinstar is not to be confused with CoinBank Automated Systems of Los Angeles. Already known for coin-counting machines, Cash Technologies of Los Angeles released ATM-X, which offers enhanced ATM services like bill paying and event ticketing on the Windows NT operating platform.
Star Bank of Cincinnati is to test ATM-X in a shopping center branch in the first quarter. Cash Technologies would install ATM-X at no cost to financial institutions or retailers and share the processing fees.
Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., made a bid to steal the show, and he wasn't even there.
Mr. Gates spoke live via satellite to the opening session last Wednesday morning, but his gig included action on stage in New Orleans: demonstrations of products like the MSFDC bill payment system and Internet banking with Provident Bank of Cincinnati, KeyCorp of Cleveland, and CoreStates Financial Corp.
Microsoft had one of the biggest pavilions on the exhibit floor, with numerous development partners on hand. The company's name was all over- including on dozens of public Internet terminals that lined the convention center lobby, which it paid for.
David Bailey, a spokesman for Microsoft rival Sun Microsystems Computer Corp., offered one of the bolder "spins" on the Microsoft onslaught. He interpreted Mr. Gates' message as "a response to everything we've been doing."
Sun Microsystems, attacking its fastest-growing industry segment, had an impressive arsenal of its own.
The champion of high-powered workstations, network and Internet computing, and the Java programming language was involved in Meca Software LLC's unveiling of the e.branch for Internet banking.
Other announcements included the availability of foreign exchange market software licensed from J.P. Morgan & Co., and an agreement with Netsmart Technologies to deliver Web-enabled kiosk and smart card systems for the financial services industry based on the SunConnect architecture and Netsmart's SmartePay kiosk technology.
TechnologyHouse Inc. has worked with Sun to develop Javelin, a Java- based customer service and customer profiling application. Javelin combines transaction records from multiple delivery channels with customer history data through a Java-based, Web-enabled front end.
International Business Machines Corp., an avid Java developer and central participant in the Integrion home banking consortium, had 40 products on display.
It launched a series of network computing products for retail banks beginning with Gold Direct, an Internet banking system based on the Integrion Gold standard.
Also announced was the integration of a customer service capability, Visual Banker Enterprise Solutions, with Lotus eSuite WorkPlace, enabling banks use network computing in a Java environment.
Anette Kolenda, general manager of banking, finance, and securities in North America, said IBM's immediate focus is on the e-business electronic commerce strategy, delivery channels, call centers, and information management. "This year we've built up a lot of capabilities and now we're on the execution side," she said.
NCR Corp. said it is forming a Customer Management Solutions Group, based in London, to promote ways to help retail financial institutions help their customers make smart decisions.
"Technology alone is not enough," said Rod Bryan, vice president of customer management solutions. In a consultant-like manner that it hopes will drive product sales, NCR wants to "help the industry mature and put business values in place."
The first financial institutions to sign with CMS are Bank of America, China Trust of Taiwan, National Australia Bank of Sydney, and Lloyds Bank of London.
E-Trade Group said it was the first on-line investing service to offer all customers a speech recognition system.
Combining technologies from Intervoice Inc., Dallas, and Applied Language Technologies Inc., Boston, E-Trade lets investors place orders, get quotes, and check balances and other portfolio information at any time from any telephone.
The vocabulary exceeds 50,000 words in two million variations.
"Part of the art of the system is the user interface design," said Stuart Patterson, president of Applied Language. "You talk to the machine but not like you'd talk to a human." Anyone can call 1-800-STOCKS1 for a demo.
Prologic Corp. of Richmond, British Columbia, announced the first customer for its Microsoft NT-based Ovation 5.0 retail banking system: Compubank, the first national bank chartered to operate entirely on the Internet and other electronic channels.
Frank Goldberg, the bank's president and chief executive officer, who started another community bank in Houston in the 1980s, said the system would help him compete against larger rivals "the way I always have-by providing superior customer service .... The wired world offers the opportunity to be more responsive to customers, not less."
Microsoft sponsored an Industry Solution Awards competition, and Prologic won for retail branch banking. Alltel Corp.'s call center workstation won in its category, and nFront Inc.'s nHome won for Internet banking.
