Ray Van Eng (01/27/97)
Previously, banks wanting to provide electronic or Internet banking services would have to either choose one standard over the other or offer two sets of interface to accommodate both the Intuit Quicken (the market leader with about 70 percent installed base) or Microsoft's Money software that consumers are using. A single standard would eliminate this problem. IBM and their 16 banks alliance, the Integrion Financial Network which represents more than 50% of the retail banking operation in North America, have vowed that their future Internet banking products will support the OFX standard. Integrion members include such banking heavyweights as Bank of America, Banc One, Royal Bank of Canada, First Chicago NBD, Mellon Bank among others. One of the objectives of this formidable group is to explore the business opportunities in electronic banking services via interactive TV, supermarket kiosks and other new media delivery channels. So far so good. "But what about me?" You, the consumer ask. "Would I be able to use my favorite copy of the Quicken or Money software, simply log onto to a bank's web site or electronic storefront and be able to carry out transactions right away?" Well, may be not that simple. Bankers would do all they best to protect their brand equity and vigorously try to retain customer loyalty by having a branded and customized user interface that sits between the banking system and your financial software. To get you to buy into their system so to speak. Of course, they would all claim that this is all for your own good because this would allow them a chance to serve you better. It is a similar case with credit cards. A bank may issue you a Visa or Mastercard card, but they would make sure that their brands and insignias would be more prominently displayed than the Visa or Mastercard logo. For some bank cards, it is actually difficult to tell whether it is a Visa or Mastercard just by glancing at it. Either the bank will supply you with a customized version of Quicken or Money (for free in some cases) or you would be required to use a plug-in software component (yuk!), or on the Internet, a likely scenario is a downloadable Java applet (a fancy name for a small computer application) that would be automatically installed and configured for you so you won't feel no pain in doing those tasks. Of course, after the transaction has taken place, you would be able to download the financial data (with a click of a button or two) into your Quicken or Money software so that you could carry out your own back end money management later. In any case, Internet banking offers much more convenience than private electronic banking via a dedicated personal computer to host mainframe connection. After you have done your banking on the net, you can switch over and carry out other activities: check you e-mail, order a T-shirt, read some news, participate in a chat forum etc. It is all point-and-click or typing a URL. However, private electronic banking may seems to be perceived as a little safer than Internet banking by way of an open network. But once the security concerns (real or imaginary) are removed, online banking especially via the Internet will accelerate dramatically. What we are seeing here today, for example, money transfers, balance inquires, bill payments etc. are just the tip of the iceberg. You can be sure that the banks would be offering much more service options as we enter into a new era of electronic commerce.
Quote from a U.S. banking customer: "All too often banks sell you all kinds of supposedly user-friendly products and services and then give you grief every day of your life about your credit line." - Art Allen ---------------------------- |
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