The scene is familiar: The chairman of a major software company takes the podium to give the keynote speech at a banking conference. The audience listens attentively, if somewhat skeptically. Later, in a panel discussion, a group of competitors, partners, and prospective customers proceeds to critique and dissect the previous speaker's strategy and question his ultimate (or ulterior) motives.
The catch?
The software mogul in question was not Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft Corp., who at such an event last December disarmed much of the criticism and suspicion abroad in the banking industry.
This time, in a turning of the tables, the object of scorn was Scott Cook, chairman of Intuit Inc., maker of the Quicken program that dominates the financial management corner of the software market against Microsoft Money and other pretenders.
Once bankers' favored underdog, seen as a desirable counterweight to mighty Microsoft, Intuit and Mr. Cook have acquired the enemy's mantle.
"I think they deserve every bit of criticism they get," said an executive at a large bank that is working with Intuit in its home banking program. "I don't consider them (Intuit) a partner. As a vendor, they're monopolistic, and they certainly don't negotiate."
The sullying of Intuit's image centers on complaints that it has been inflexible in its pricing and seeks to lock banks into using its subsidiary, Intuit Services Corp., for payment processing.
Microsoft's recent strategic moves - a payment services venture with Visa International, "open" specifications allowing its Money service to be offered by any bank or third party, and a reaffirmation of its mission as a software and systems vendor (rather than potentially a bank) - have only helped to paint Intuit as the more unyielding.
"Microsoft is interested in developing options for the industry," said Tim Kemp, manager of on-line services at First Chicago NBD Corp. "Intuit is interested in what's best for Intuit."
Intuit supporters, led by Mr. Cook himself, talk up its consumer marketing skills and comprehensive service offering, which packages personal financial software with electronic bill payments, Internet access, and, soon, other financial services.
"We offer the same price to everyone," Mr. Cook said. "That may be read by some people as inflexible. We read it as fair."
He might have added that the company claims 9 million Quicken users and at least an 80% market share - affluent, computer-literate, financially savvy customers who are coveted by marketers of home banking services.
Mr. Cook said that by achieving economies of scale through a single processor - its own - Intuit can keep prices down while offering better service.
As for Microsoft Money, which has about one-sixth Quicken's market share, he said, "The business is so small that it doesn't really matter where you put it, because there aren't enough customers there."
Quicken is Intuit's trump card. Bankers who offer both Money-based and Quicken-based on-line services said Quicken was at least twice as popular even after Microsoft gave away the most recent version of its software.
And Mr. Cook, speaking in a recent interview, claimed bankers' complaints have abated since the company resolved its widely reported problems with bill-payment routing earlier this year.
But some bankers have become increasingly vocal in their discontent.
"They sort of own the swimming pool," said the bank executive who asked not to be identified. "They continue to throw their weight around."
The combination of Quicken's lock on the market and Intuit's control over its system, critics say, puts the banks in a vise. Although they would prefer to choose among options, including back-end processors, bankers say they cannot afford to tamper with a formula that is bringing them customers.
An average 20% of those who sign up with a bank for Quicken (or Money) services are new customers, Mr. Cook said. Although he declined to disclose how many Money and Quicken customers are served through Intuit Services, he said the company expects to have between 200,000 and 400,000 on-line by the end of its fiscal year in July.
He compared this to the current leader in electronic payment processing, Checkfree Corp., which had 215,000 as of December 1995.
"In eight months, we will have built a larger customer base, and one likely to be much larger," than Checkfree built in six years, Mr. Cook said.
"In a couple of months," he went on, "we built a larger audience than the banks did in 10 years doing home banking themselves."
Only six months ago, Intuit was bankers' darling. Free from having almost been acquired by Microsoft, the Silicon Valley software maker had compiled an impressive initial roster of more than 20 leading financial institutions to offer home banking through Quicken. (It now has more than 30.)
Its July 1994 purchase of the Downers Grove, Ill., processor National Payment Clearinghouse Inc. - now Intuit Services - had already given Intuit the enviable status of a sole supplier, handling transactions for Microsoft Money as well as its own service.
Other astute moves included partnerships with America Online and Internet service provider Concentric Network. Intuit expects to complete the purchase this summer of mutual fund servicer Galt Technologies, diversifying its financial service portfolio.
Even internally, Intuit seems to be steeling itself for further pursuits. The company last winter consolidated its disparate collection of offices in Menlo Park and Palo Alto, Calif., into a more centralized headquarters at Sun Microsystems Inc.'s former campus in Mountain View.
But Intuit's meteoric success has been double-edged. Front-runners get sniped at.
"Six to 12 months ago, it wasn't clear to banks, or anyone, who would be the leader in this area," Mr. Cook said. "Now in terms of number of banks, size of banks, number of customers, by almost any reasonable measure, Intuit is clearly the leader.
"Things change when there's a firm that's clearly the leader. You get people who talk about you more, you get looked at more, competitors focus on you and criticize you more."
Whatever bankers may be saying, Intuit and its energetic leader are still lionized in the technology realm.
"We worship the Intuit management team," said Ted Leonsis, president of America Online. "In the long run, they will win because of their fortitude and religious fervor for the consumer."
America Online and Intuit have been working together since last fall to develop a financial service for delivery through America Online. The project, code-named "Mercury," is supposed to be unveiled this summer.
Bankers' reaction has been mixed: The availability of the service could further the home banking cause, but banks' identities could be overshadowed by such powerful brand names.
Mr. Leonsis tells bankers to get used to the rough-and-tumble of technology alliances.
"Banking has always been more of a gentleman's agreement, a handshake business," Mr. Leonsis said. In technology, "you always know that your enemy today could be your ally tomorrow.
"He who aggregates the most customers and provides the best service will win."
"I like Intuit. I love Scott Cook," said Esther Dyson, computer journalist, on-line free-speech advocate, and founder of Edventure Holdings. "This is not a guy who's highfalutin or pompous.
"He's trying to provide an on-line service where people have better access to different financial service providers. He wants to be Crisco, he doesn't want to be some kind of exotic frosting."
That simple and direct approach toward improving the lot of those Mr. Cook calls "ordinary people" is at the heart of Intuit's mission and its founder's passion.
Once an executive at Procter & Gamble and a consultant with Bain & Co., he built his company, its brand, and virtually all related business around a basic, consistent marketing plan that invests faith in its customers and responds to their feedback to improve products.
"I see them as having put a business plan together and having chosen to stick with it in a marketplace that has changed rapidly," said Daniel Herbeck, president of direct banking at Marquette Banks in Minnesota.
While Mr. Herbeck said he would like Intuit to expand its processing options, he added that Marquette would "never back away from a supplier that's worked well for us." He said Intuit has improved as a bank partner. There have not been "any major service issues" since the processing calamities in February, he said.
Mr. Cook said pointedly that Intuit does not intend to deviate from its course, no matter what Microsoft or Checkfree may throw in its path.
Even though it complicates matters for a bank to use separate processors for Money and Quicken, PNC Bank Corp. recently opted to run Money transactions through Checkfree - which is the bank's telephone bill payment servicer - and Compass Bancshares chose Visa.
Mr. Cook said he was "not surprised" by those banks' moves, saying he expects others will do the same. He said he is more concerned with whether the customers are happy.
"Consumers don't care who's doing the processing," he said. "None of these products do anyone any good unless the consumers embrace it."
Outside observers take a different view.
Phoebe Simpson, an analyst with Jupiter Communications Co., sponsor of the conference where Mr. Cook was on the hot seat, said if Intuit were to embrace Microsoft's open financial connectivity specifications for Quicken, it would risk "handing the reins to Microsoft."
The bank partner of Intuit said, "It's unfortunate that a premier product like Quicken is saddled with a processor like Intuit Services Corp."
Nevertheless, others won't want to upset this apple cart.
First Chicago NBD, one of the first banks to pilot Microsoft's Money service three years ago with National Payment Clearinghouse, now has 10,000 customers banking through Money and Quicken. Two out of three are on the Quicken service, which is newer. Mr. Kemp said the total is up 700% in a year.
