Headlines:
Encoder Overhaul Declared a Success Wachovia Goes to Element School Conn. Bank Sold On SilverBack System FirstCaribbean Set for Tech Integration New Teller System at Citizens of R.I.
Encoder Overhaul Declared a Success
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. - Eighteen months after a fairly low-tech upgrading of the check encoders in its proof department, People's Bank says productivity is markedly improved.
People's, which has assets of $13 billion and is the largest state-chartered bank in Connecticut, replaced the entire fleet of encoders in the centralized proof center that serves its 155 branches, said support services manager Kenneth A. Innocenzi.
It bought 30 Unisys Corp. Encode-100 machines from its Bridgeport neighbor Computer Resolutions Inc., a consultant/equipment supplier, while retiring 30 Unisys S-695 encoders that were 15 years old, Mr. Innocenzi said in an interview April 10.
"We replaced like for like," he said. "We started getting some immediate gains in productivity."
Before the upgrade, machine operators in the proof department averaged 1,700 items an hour. Now the department averages more than 2,300 items an hour, Mr. Innocenzi said.
Faster processing improves the department's service to the branches and its customers while reducing the credit risk from check float and fraud, he said.
People's still has employees key in check amounts on the items by hand. It is considering a move to imaging but has no concrete plan to do so or to adopt handwriting recognition technology, Mr. Innocenzi said.
People's began the hardware upgrade a month before the terrorist attacks on America grounded the nation's check-carrying air fleets, a disruption that led to calls for digital-image check clearing. The People's project was three months old when regulators first reported that check volume in the banking system was well below the level that experts had believed.
Wachovia Goes to Element School
CHARLOTTE - Wachovia Corp. says a licensing deal it signed with Element K LLC will help it be more flexible in training its 80,000-strong work force.
"We've been moving more to a learner-centric approach," Scott A. Sutker, a vice president in the banking company's learning strategy group, said in an interview. "Rather than telling somebody, 'Class is 10 o'clock on Wednesday morning - be there,' you can decide how you want to learn."
The deal with Element K, of Rochester, N.Y., includes two collections of material focused on computer-related topics.
One is a group of high-level technical courses for the information technology staff, on topics including compiler language, Oracle databases, and Cisco networks. The other focuses on basic desktop applications and is aimed at general corporate users of programs such as Microsoft Word and Excel or Lotus Notes.
Conn. Bank Sold On SilverBack System
WINDER, Ga. - By using technology to monitor traffic on its data network, Peoples Bank is getting earlier notice of computer problems, an executive says.
Patti Faglier, an executive vice president at $209 million-asset Peoples and its chief operating officer, said it has used digital imaging for more than seven years on documents such as loan files and has been imaging checks for four years. It plans to move its in-house item processing to prime-pass image capture by yearend, she said.
Peoples plans to start experimenting with voice-over IP - switching phone messages among its six branches over its data network, using Internet protocols - in May in conjunction with the opening of a new operations center.
Peoples took the advice of its tech support consultant, Safe Systems Inc. of Alpharetta, Ga., to use a monitoring system recently developed by SilverBack Technologies Inc. of Billerica, Mass.; the system plugs into a bank's wide area network
"I don't like to be on the bleeding edge. We always like to be on the leading edge," Ms. Faglier said.
One afternoon after business hours, Safe Systems called to ask whether Peoples had lost its Internet connection.
Previously, "It might have been the next day before I would have noticed it," Ms. Faglier said. The continuous monitoring "helps with our productivity because it gets fixed before anybody even knows there's a problem."
The SilverBack technology also provides security scans of the network, flagging unusual activity for attention. Its reports sift through the welter of data logs from the bank's computer systems to focus on issues of importance to managers and regulators.
"They feel very good about the security on our network," Ms. Faglier said. "It has greatly reduced the amount of time we have had to spend reviewing those reports."
Peoples also learned that it had been buying far more network capacity than it needed. The new operation center and voice-over initiatives will add to the data traffic, "I still think we'll be able to cut our bandwidth" and save money, Ms. Faglier said. "This has given me a tool where I can make this decision and feel comfortable making the decision, because I can see what the results are going to be."
FirstCaribbean Set for Tech Integration
WARRENS, Barbados - FirstCaribbean International Bank Ltd. has hired Computer Sciences Corp. to oversee the technology integration of its two predecessor banks across 15 nations.
The bank said the overall cost of the 21-month project is expected to be $31.5 million, of which $20.5 million is designated for Computer Sciences, of El Segundo, Calif.
FirstCaribbean, with assets of about $9 billion, was formed in October by the merger of the Caribbean operations of Barclays Bank PLC and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.
Charles Pink, the bank's chief executive officer, said a major goal was to enable telephone banking and Internet banking across the region. "Most of our competitors do not have those channels in place," Mr. Pink said in an interview. "We are keen to get the competitive advantage from that."
An early priority will be to transfer 450,000 customer accounts from Barclays' legacy computer system, an aging one developed in-house, to the CIBC one, an 18-month-old Fiserv Inc. International Comprehensive Banking System. The third-party software, Mr. Pink said, "is more likely to stay leading-edge without having to invest massively ourselves."
At the same time, the bank plans to lay the foundation for customer relationship management work.
"There is a huge data-cleansing effort here," he said, referring to the process of cross-checking and standardizing the recordkeeping of the 450,000 accounts. "The opportunity to clean up our database on a one-off basis is huge."
The bank plans a phased, country-by-country implementation, starting with the smaller nations and moving later to the larger markets. "My prime focus in all this is to make it work seamlessly for the customer," Mr. Pink said.
New Teller System at Citizens of R.I.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Citizens Financial Group Inc. plans to spend more than $100 million to install Internet-based teller and customer service software at its branches and call centers.
"The system we have today is only adequate," said William K. Wray, an executive vice president of the $64 billion-asset unit of Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC and the chief information officer of its Citizens Bank. He described its current system as a collection of mainframe-style "green screen" programs that fail to take advantage of advances in technology. "We want to get better and better and better."
Citizens said on April 14 that its technology investment, which also includes improved computer screens and printers for tellers, will be built around the TouchPoint branch automation software from WebTone Technologies Inc. of Atlanta. Mr. Wray said that his company talked to "literally dozens of companies" over the course of a year before bringing in WebTone and a second finalist for pilot testing.
WebTone, which is now in use in a handful of branches in New England, will be introduced in more than 850 Citizens branches beginning in July, he said in an interview.
Citizens will introducing the new system in phases, starting this year in its New England branches and its "Phone Bank" call centers. The software will be installed in its Mid-Atlantic region next year.
The new system will allow Citizens to deliver "a whole range of capabilities and services," speeding the process for opening new accounts and enabling branch employees to offer product demonstrations that are not possible now, Mr. Wray said. "It makes us do what we do now better."
He highlighted Citizens' emphasis on customer service while downplaying the role of customer relationship management.
"CRM is just business," he said. "What else are you supposed to do if not manage your relationships with customers? The technology doesn't sell and doesn't service - the people do. There's no point at which you say, 'We've served enough customers.' "
