Tech Bytes: Bank Administration Institute Has Web Site

CHICAGO - Underscoring its contentions about the importance of the Internet to financial services, the Bank Administration Institute has set up a site on the World Wide Web.

The institute's "home page," as Web sites are called, will feature overviews of the banking organization's more than 200 conferences and programs. Also included will be executive summaries, an entire section on the organization's popular retail delivery conference, articles from the group's Bank Management magazine, and links to more than 110 on-line sites of financial institutions.

The forum will let on-line "browsers" register for conferences, order research studies, and communicate with the institute's staff by electronic mail.

Joseph S. Pendleton 3d, a senior vice president at Meridian Bank, Reading, Pa., praised the move. "In today's increasingly competitive market, access to and control of information is the name of the game," said Mr. Pendleton, a member of the committee that planned the organization's recent direct banking conference.

In June the institute and Boston Consulting Group published the first half of "The Information Superhighway and Retail Banking," a research study on remote financial services. It predicted that the Internet would become increasingly important in financial services, and strongly encouraged banks to investigate on-line access possibilities.

The second half of the study will be released at the annual retail delivery conference in December.

The Bank Administration Institute Web's site can be reached at http://www.bai.org.