Years

1987

Microsoft and IBM jointly release OS/2.

CompuServe-at this time owned by H&R Block-is the dominant on-line provider in the United States, offering proto e-mail and charging dial-up rates by the hour. It starts to offer continuously-updated quotes on 10,000 stocks, access to an S&P database of 3,000 companies and fundamentals analysis for $39.95 and $25 worth of free on-line time.

Pitney Bowes subsidiary Dictaphone introduces its Connexions voice processing system, marrying voice mail and messages to an internal database. It and other advances in voice recognition lead to the rise of the modern call center.

Four years after being spun off from Sun Oil Co., SUNGard acquires 4 companies and marks its first overseas expansion.

Sumitomo and others start format war over smart cards. The smart card industry in the US is predicted to be $2 billion.

Apple fires a shot: Macs running Excel now go head-to-head against IBM PCs running Lotus 1-2-3. IBM pulls the plug on International Markets Net, a $100 million joint venture with Merrill Lynch to provide information services to stockbrokers. These clashes are the '80s equivalent of the Browser Wars and other standards battles to come.

Oracle announces a PC version of the database programs currently running on so-called "minicomputers." They're prepped to run on the new Intel-powered 32-bit machines.

Charles Schwab and his private consortium buy back his discount brokerage from Bank of America for $280 million.

Mastercard now tries to get members to go with "smart" cards. Unfortunately, the cards cost $3 per card and would force merchants to get new terminals. They don't.

Financial Interchange, the largest regional banking system in the U.S., picks Tandem Computers to run the "Pulse" system on 4,000 cash machines. Tandem is eventually bought by Compaq, and is now part of HP.

Bank of America tries a new system called MasterNet, designed by Premier Systems, to manage BofA's $34 billion in trust accounts. The system's rolled out. It crashes. Statements run late. Clients pull out $1.5 billion.

NYSE chairman John Phelan annoys the Street by warning against computer-based "program trading," saying its volatility makes him fear a meltdown.

1988

Fiserv expands to Latin America and Europe, four years after its founding, via a merger of regional data processors, First Data Processing in Milwaukee and Sunshine State Systems in Tampa.

AmNet develops packet-based switching networks; PC-compatible information now flows more efficiently on phone lines, fiber optics or via satellite.

Jack Henry & Assoc. launches its Emergency Mobile Processing Unit. It's a van equipped with an IBM computer system. Banks can load backup daily transaction disks onto the mobile computer, keeping systems running in case of an emergency. Subscriptions start at $30 annually for every $1 million in assets.

MasterCard purchases the Cirrus EFT network.

The EDI invoicing market reaches $80 million in size.

EnterAd, a proto-online marketing network, is launched in Richmond, VA. See the billboard on the road: note the 1-800 modem number, dial-up at home, see the ad! Run by Serg International, the system would even offer electronic ordering, charging ad clients $8 to $12 per click-through. It proves to be not so popular. Online advertising, though, is born.

First meeting of the Software Maintenance Association, a society of professional programmers who discuss the "Millennium Bug."

Fire destroys an Illinois Bell switching center and disrupts service at more than 100 financial institutions for months, knocking out ATMs, striking down teller terminals, stopping collections, bank by phone, cash management and telemarketing. It propels a boom in disaster planning software sales.

Bankers Trust hooks up with NYNEX to build out a 10,000-line backup system. First Union exec George Mattingly disuses it as insufficient.

Interstat Technology of Miami develops a system that approves paper checks in 15 seconds or less at the point of sale. It doesn't catch on.

Citibank buys 3,000 digital equipment corp. "workstations" to build a global trading network. At this point, DEC is a player. It won't be forever.

First Data buys Eastern States Bankcard Association.

1989

NACHA conducts its first Direct Deposit national marketing campaign.

Manufacturer's Hanover, at this point the nation's 7th-largest bank, picks Little Rock-based Systematics to supply the institution's software after a year-long search for a third-party provider.

Systematics chief executive Walter Smiley, who built the software vendor over 20 years into a $200 million company, decides it's time to retire.

Barnett Bank of Florida creates a $220 million infotech subsidiary called Barnett Technologies. Over a series of months it commits $50 million to move toward a distributed data architecture built on IBM Token Ring LAN technology. That goes along with nearly 10,000 IBM PS/2 machines by the end of 1990.

Online Resources founded.

1990

Tim Berners-Lee and colleagues at CERN in Switzerland invent hypertext markup language-HTML-the foundation for the World Wide Web.

The financial crimes enforcement network is formed to maximize information sharing among law enforcement agencies.

Plus and Cirrus cut a deal. Now customers from either network are serviced at cash machines belonging to either network. It's a prelude to the "cash anywhere, anytime" changes in society.

EDS and First Fidelity make $450 million deal; EDS to manage First Fidelity's entire data center.

1991

AT&T acquires NCR. NCR purchases Teradata Corp., one of the best-known relational database firm in the business.

EDS and Banc One team up on a $100 million project called the Strategic Banking System. The customer service platform reportedly results in cost savings of 10 to 20 percent on the company bottom line.

IBM posts a $5 billion loss-a record in corporate American history-prompting it to shift its focus toward software and services instead of hardware.

Philadelphia's Corestates doubles business handled by its electronic payment services group by buying BuyPass the system, inc. the largest third-party provider of processing services for point-of-sale transactions.

Financial Proformas rolls out FAST Advisor, a pioneering AI system for making lending decisions on commercial borrowers.

Harold Lee, an svp at Wells Fargo, is one of a few bankers joining the effort to build commercial loan scorecards.

Acquisition-happy Fiserv snaps up Citicorp's data processing division for $49 million, bringing 400 new clients with it. It is the 30th acquisition for seven-year-old Fiserv.

Prudential Securities is one of several firms starting to use powerful parallel-design supercomputers for commercial applications, obtaining risk analysis for mortgage-backed securities, sometimes in as short a time as 30 seconds. Other financial service firms are seen as emerging markets for the machines.

NationsBank outsources its loan and deposit software to Alltel, who by now have bought Systematics. It sets the stage for the rise of third-party application service provider deals by showing that banks can trust outsiders with critical functions, cut costs by moving it outside the house, and still keep control over personnel.

Debate rages over whether to go for PCs in teller stations or reduced-instruction set computers-i.e., dumb terminals-in automating branches. PCs eventually win.

Mellon decides to snub a mainframe-based executive information system in favor of a PC net for its top-cat executives, spotlighting an institutional move away from mainframe and minicomputers toward the PC.

1992

Banc One, Norwest and EDS create the Strategic Banking System, an integrated consumer, loan and deposit network which is one of the first client-server computing architectures.

The Harrison Company builds one of the first automated loyalty programs for banks.

Projections from the Electronic Industries Association are that interactive TV will penetrate 50 percent of households by 2007.

VeriFone launches a mobile credit-card point of sale reader. It's ahead of its time.

Fair Isaac buys Dynamark, creating a well regarded data-mining business. Revenues triple by '98.

Digital Equipment Co., fighting to boost waning influence, exhibits ATMs at its corporate expo. It bought the banking and investment unit of Philips, started selling ATMs in Europe, and now wants to bring the business into the US.

Diebold and IBM merge cash machine operations into a newly created company called InterBold. IBM then stops marketing ATMs in the US. The partnership lasts until 1997, when Diebold buys IBM out.

e*Trade, a discount stock brokerage, is formed from shell company trade plus. It debuts in 1993 on Compuserve.

CheckFree joins with TV Answer, a wireless interactive television company, to have a go at two-way cable on-line bill payment via TV.

1993

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications releases Mosaic, the first popular HTML-based Web Browser, developed by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina. In short order, Andreessen leaves (some say absconds from) tech group and starts Netscape Communications. The World Wide Web comes of age.

Financial Services Technology Consortium, a tech talk shop, is founded among financial firms.

Mike Wallace and Mike Henry are promoted to president and vice chairman, respectively, of Jack Henry.

Visa buys the Denver-based payment network Plus System, creating a web stretching across the globe accepting Plus or Visa cash cards at 250,000 locations. At this point, Visa has 318 million and Plus more than 200 million cardholders.

Triton develops the first dial-up retail cash machine, the Triton 9500. The Delaware firm will deploy its debut machine in the unlikely town of Diamondhead, MS.

1994

Bill Gates declares banks "dinosaurs" and says they can be bypassed.

Rich Fairbank and Nigel Morris found Capital One in McClean, VA; the monoline card issuer will grow to rival MBNA and then diversify into other products, all the while driven by intense data mining and information-based marketing.

1995

Sun Microsystems, headed by CEO Scott McNealy, introduces Java, a universal development language that becomes one of world's most popular.

Digicash, as of 2007, is "currently operating in stealth mode" in New York.

Mark Twain Bank of St. Louis, MO., launches eCash, a product of small start-up DigiCash. eCash is an all-electronic alternative Internet currency, a proto-PayPal.

Security First Network Bank, the first bank chartered on the Internet, goes live. eric walter of Atlanta is its first customer.

Remember screenphones? We don't, much. Neither does Citi - it pulls the plug on its big Chicagoland experiment.

EDS pulls ahead of BofA to become the largest owner of cash machines in the country.

1996

IBM and MasterCard launch secure credit card purchases online with Secure Electronic Transactions.

Archipelago is formed.

Digital Insight is founded, catering initially to credit unions and small banks.

LendingTree sprouts to life. It's bought in 2003 by Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp.

Integrion Financial Network created among 17 financial companies to offer online services. It's intended as a way to build bank-branded channels to funnel customers away from the clutches of Microsoft and Intuit, but collapses in 2000 due to infighting.

Bayshore Trust of Canada is the first to offer complete online lending. It's then bought by Trimark Financial.

CheckFree buys Servantis Systems Holding.

TRW spins off credit bureau to form Experian in a $1.1 billion deal.

The first popularly recognized instances of "phishing" pop up on America Online

1997

iCat offers Electronic Commerce Suite for Internet catalogues and secure transactions. The cost? $9,995.

Credit derivatives become the latest hot bit of financial engineering.

"Internal entrepreneur" Dudley Nigg, Wells Fargo evp, leaves because of Norwest merger; at this point 350,000 Wells customers can order travelers' checks, monitor account balances and transfer money in cyberspace.

Former Viacom exec Ed Horowitz joins Citi as head of global technology.

Datamonitor predicts 3.5 billion smart cards by 2001. It turns out to be more like 21 million.

Subway becomes the first fast-food chain to accept credit and debit cards on a widespread basis.

IBM/Sun/Netscape create a smart card scheme.

Piper Jaffray analyst Bill Burnham-soon to become a very hot commodity-issues his first Electronic Commerce Report. It's a herald of the dot-com explosion that's coming-now.

CIBC tests Web-enabled ATMs that can update a screen in real time.

Eric Schmidt moves from Sun, where he was CTO, to be CEO of Novell. In 2001, he'll become CEO of Google.

Marv Adams named Bank One's CTO. This firm later launches the most prominent online bank, Wingspanbank.com. It tanks. Adams is now CIO at citigroup.

Microsoft announces a new platform for Web-based financial services call Marble.

Josh Grotstein hired by Citi evp Ed Horowitz as Internet strategist to develop bank's presence on the Web.

Marty Lippert hired as CIO at Royal Bank of Canada.

Mondex, a smart card pilot with Chase, Citi, Mastercard, and Visa, kicks off.

Bank of Montreal starts offering student lines of credit via the Web, processing loans in 30 seconds.

BoNY acquires BondNet, then the only real-time, online bond trading system.

Liffe spends $162 million to bolster open outcry support.

Bank One and E*trade launch an integrated financial services Web site allowing bank customers to manage portfolios.

Chase teams with Checkfree to bring bill payment to its Web site.

Experian and First American Real Estate Info Services create the largest mortgage credit data service.

Citi allies with Intel's Pandesic Co, which offers turnkey EC commerce solutions.

Fleet acquires Quick & Reilly.

Bank of America marks milestone by completing a $4 billion loan syndication using the Internet.

Corillian is founded.

TransPoint is launched as a joint venture by Microsoft and First Data, with Citibank as a minority investor. The deal doesn't sit well with many industry players.

CheckFree buys Intuit Services Corporation.

G-20 banks meet to plan to settle the world's forex operations in a single institution called the continuous linked settlement bank.

1998

Security First Network Bank rolls up its Web bank to focus on Security First Technologies.

Remember Digital Equipment Co.? Its ATM venture didn't work. Minicomputers are out. Compaq buys it. Of course, Compaq isn't long for the world, either.

Mr. Payroll and BofA plan to install three facial biometric check-cashing machines in Dallas.

The Dime Savings Bank says it will install automated loan machines that offer direct video interaction with loan officers.

SVPCo, which operates a standardized network of check clearing and settlement centers, is formed by 19 major banks.

Ross Perot, chairman of Perot Systems Corp. tells several thousand bankers in "rambling" speech at Retail Delivery that "Money is like narcotics. It makes you stupid."

Linus Torvalds creates Linux, an open-source operating system. It, not Intuit, winds up posing the more lasting challenge to Microsoft. It's now a mainstream O/S, running on server installations in very large corporate systems.

Pittsburgh-based Dollar Bank first to offer U.S. savings bonds over the Internet.

Microsoft-First Data partnership allows Banc One customers to receive and pay bill online.

Total System Services alliance with CheckFree will allow bank client cardholders to receive and pay credit online.

Chase introduces online "instant" credit decisions for credit card issuance, allowing shoppers to apply for a credit card online and receive approval in seconds.

Fiserv buys 11 firms, bringing its total acquisition figure since its founding in 1984 to 73.

Wal-Mart allows shoppers to use NYCE-enabled ATMs for debit purchases

1999

E*Trade and Sanford Robertson, a former Wall Street banker, announce they will invest in E*Offering, which specializes in IPOs.

E*Trade and Goldman each take a 25 percent stake in Archipelago, a deal hailed as an alliance between the new and old.

Banking consortium Spectrum is formed by 11 major institutions to act as an exchange to route e-bills between banks and customers.

Instinet invests in Archipelago. Archipelago announces plans to register as a stock exchange.

Bank One launches Wingspanbank, spinning off its Internet banking into an online-only operation. It's a big deal-the debate over online cannibalism of bank business is raging, and Wingspan is formed as an independent unit to BankOne.

CheckFree buys Moebius Group.

Metavante buys Moneyline

Express, ADP Electronic Banking Services and Cardpro Services.

TransUnion sells its DATEQ Information Network to ChoicePoint.

Twenty-eight of world's largest banks experience at least one major network attack in past year, costing between $45,000 and $1.2 million. But IT execs do not expect security budgets to rise.

2000

Yodlee merges with Vertical One.

Seventy-two percent of consumers expressed little interest in banking over cell phones or personal digital assistants, according to survey from American Banker and Gallup.

CheckFree buys TransPoint in a $1 billion stock deal.

Corillian becomes a publicly traded company.

X.com and Confinity merge to become PayPal.

CheckFree buys BlueGill Technologies.

Digital Insight, founded in 1995, merges with nFront.

First Data Corp. buys REMITCO Management Corp.

2001

Terror strikes: in the heart of Manhattan, the destruction of the World Trade Center is a knife to the belly of the financial industry as well as the country. While the damage is lasting, main systems hold. Dust off and move on.

Merrill pays $400,000 to settle claim that analyst Henry Blodget's forecasts were sullied by conflicts of interest.

American Bankers Association survey found that 65.6 percent of community banks have Web sites, up from 22 percent five years previous. But 40 percent of the banks admit they don't think the sites will ever make money.

In September, all of Citibank's 2, 000 cash machines crash. The reason, according to a company spokesman: software.

Microsoft releases highly anticipated Windows XP operating system in October with authentication system Passport as a key element.

Metavante buys Internet banking assets from Brokat Technologies. It then goes on to buy Derivion, CyberBills and 401kservices.com.

RSA buys Securant Technologies.

Diebold buys Mosler.

Federal Reserve says that 42.5 billion checks were written in the U.S. in the previous year, far lower than the 66 billion that had been previously predicted.

Wells Fargo launches wireless banking, expecting 8 million customers by 2003. That doesn't happen. Wells Wireless only lasts 18 months. The idea's got staying power, however....

7-Eleven rolls out its program for advanced ATMs in 94 stores in Texas. Plans called for the machines to be in all markets the following year.

2002

In January, SecuritiesHub adds 144A debt offerings to its online portal operations, the first time these opaque securities are available outside traditional venues.

Securities Hub is owned by CSFB, Goldman, JP Morgan, Lehman, Merrill Morgan Stanley, Salomon Smith Barney and Communicator. The site's still up but nothing seems to have happened since 2005.

Metavante acquires Spectrum EBP.

Diebold enters U.S. self-service elections industry with acquisition of Global Elections Systems. So far, it's been an unhappy venture.

Harland Financial Solutions acquires SPARAK Financial Systems to enter the core-processing market.

CheckFree agrees to provide ABN Amro with dedicated ACH operations.

Fiserv launches ePrime-Fiserv, which bundles on-line banking, bill payment, investment, and core-account processing into one package.

It also launches TheLendingSite.com, which is the technology backbone for Internet-based lending.

Experian buys Consumer Info.com, a provider of credit services, for $130 million.

Digital Insight buys Virtual Financial Services.

eBay is the winning bidder for PayPal for $1.5 billion.

2003

ID theft costs 10 million Americans a total of $73.8 billion, while lenders report a loss of over $1 billion, according to the Federal Trade Commission, which describes ID theft as the fastest growing crime.

Further evidence is the arrest of Philip Cummings, mastermind of a $2.7 million fraud ring.

Fiserv goes on a buying spree, acquiring 12 companies. When isn't it buying companies?

Anticipating Check 21, Wamu is the first top 10 bank to start capturing digital check images at the branch, cutting a $400 million deal with Unisys in order to do so.

Check 21, formally Check Clearing for the 21st Century, is signed into law. Digital check images are now street legal.

Chuck Ogilvie resigns from S1. Starts a wealth-advisory firm.

Credit chargeoffs and delinquencies on subprime mortgages shoot up. A credit crunch ensues. The role of automated decisioning is questioned. Sound familiar?

American Express, JPMorganchase and ABN Amro outsource pieces of their technology ops to IBM and EDS; CIBC inks a seven-year $1.5 billion outsourcing agreement with HP to handle midrange servers, networking gear and desktop PCs.

Baker Hill buys sales automator Inspired Design for managing sales processes and customer information across multiple business lines.

Bank of New York and Pershing merge to create the biggest supermarket of correspondent services in the industry.

First Data buys Concord EFS for $7 billion, combining the STAR Network with NYCE. Except it has to sell its interest in NYCE in order to get Fed approval.

The BugBear.B virus, the first aimed at online finance, hits at least 14 banks.

Account aggregator Yodlee launches its BillDirect service to compete with CheckFree. It's still going.

Big banks around the country give up trying to charge fees for online bill payment.

Citi's personal payments service-the vaunted c2it-shuts down.

2004

Phishing messages increase an average of 38 percent per month in the second half of the year, according to the Anti-Phishing Working Group.

The second half of the year also sees a 64 percent increase in computer viruses and worms, and a 44 percent increase in malicious code written to expose confidential data on the Internet, according to a study from software company Symantec.

Archipelago goes public.

Sungard buys financial data management firm fame information services.

Ray Thompson named director of IT at Barclays Capital. BarCap is about to go on a three-year profit tear, becoming the main revenue driver for the entire Barclays group.

Mastercard buys TowerGroup for $23 million in a bid to pump up its IT research expertise. It promises independence.

Metavante buys Kirchman Corporation, Advanced Financial Solutions, VECTORsgi.

Online Resources acquires Incurrent Solutions.

Gartner Group estimates that ID theft cost consumers, banks and credit card companies about $11.7 billion in the 12 months ending in April of this year.

"The U.S. will be there by 2007," says TowerGroup's John Gould, referring to smart cards. Um....

Siebel buys Eontec, expanding its product line to include branch teller and online banking apps.

Metavante buys NYCE, giving it access to the country's second-largest PIN network.

The NYSE pushes ahead with Direct Plus, allowing for more electronic trading at the Big Board. It now handles 15 percent of trades.

JPMorgan cancels its $5 billion outsourcing contract with IBM. About the same time UBS ends its relationship with Perot Systems.

Skype makes it big with trading floors as the IM program of choice on the Street.

2005

An illegal marketplace for stolen credit card numbers called Shadowcrew is shut down by agents.

Citigroup Global Transaction Services licenses integrated solutions from SunGard to support its North American third-party admin business.

Oracle wins its battle to take over Peoplesoft in a $10 billion deal. Later it will buy Siebel, invest in i-flex and buy Thor Technologies.

Nasdaq buys Instinet for $934 million. The NYSE keeps pace, below.

Sungard goes private in the biggest such deal - $11.3 billion - since RJR Nabisco. One player is the same: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

Mastercard announces some 40 million accounts may be at risk due to a security breach at a third-party processor. It's the first of what will be a major story through 2006.

Metavante buys Prime Associates, TREEV, GHR, and LINK2GOV.

Experian buys Baker Hill, which provides commercial lending software.

RSA buys Cyota and Passmark.

NYSE plans to merge with electronic rival Archipelago Holdings.

2006

Corillian partners with StrikeForce Technologies, to help financial institutions combat identity theft.

Jack Henry debuts ProfitStars, a subsidiary which offers services for any core processing system.

Wamu launches free online account opening.

First Data, the leading outsourcer in credit-card processing, spins off crown jewel western union.

Visa tests mobile-wallet style payments through "smart" posters and phone kiosks at Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Thrashers basketball and hockey games.

EMC buys RSA in a $2.1 billion deal. It's part of the big consolidation move in the data security realm.

Citibank overhauls its online approach and bids a final farewell to Citi f/i: the new look is called Citibank Direct, a multi-product, multi-purpose offering.

Google launches Google Checkout, an alternative payments system. It doesn't make big client eBay very happy. It shouldn't make banks happy, either.

Metavante buys VICOR.

The RSA division of EMC buys Verid.

Diebold buys Genpass Service Solutions.

Online Resources buys bill payment provider Princeton eCom.

Hold the phone, Elvis! In Tupelo, MS, BancorpSouth starts offering mobile phone banking to its customers which use Cingular (now AT&T).

2007

Intuit starts the year off with a bang by buying Digital Insight, then shells out $142 million for Electronic Clearing House.

VeriFone signs deal to process point-of-sale card payments in NYC yellow cabs.

Fair Isaac names ex-IBM veteran Mark Greene as its CEO.

CheckFree buys Carreker Corporation.

Experian buys Hitwise.

Oracle buys Hyperion Solutions and Bharosa.

First Data Corp. acquires FundsXpress.

CheckFree buys Corillian as the old dot-com warriors fade away.

Then Fiserv, in a market-stunning move, buys CheckFree for $4.4 billion. It's the emergence of an independent, full-service financial infrastructure.

half-empty...

"The security issue has been a big hype. The issue is not a technical issue. It's a political issue."

Ron Parsons, director of CommerceNet Northeast, on why security won't be an impediment to electronic commerce, 1997.

"That's an avenue that is always available at different points in time."

Christos Cotsakos, commenting in 1997 on the possibility of E*Trade selling out to a diversified financial services company.

"They have not removed the human element of judgment."

John Courson, vp of the Mortgage Bankers Association, on claims that GSE automated underwriting software was diluting credit decisioning. 1997.

half-full...

"To me, the Internet is just the next telephone system. And I don't see any bank saying they're not going to use phones."

Michael McChesney, CEO of Security First Technologies, on the need for multimedia call centers. 1997.

"Faster, easier and flexible are the standards of the future."

Garry Barnes, regional vp, Valley Independent Bank, on the challenges faced by banks. 2004.

"It can be more important to be virtual than local."

Jorge Sauri, president, Vue Centric, on the benefits of paperless mortgage processing. 2005. (c) 2007 Bank Technology News and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved. http://www.banktechnews.com http://www.sourcemedia.com

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