Ray Van Eng (06/04/97)
Seven financial institutions including First Union National Bank, Mellon Bank, Barnett Bank, Compass, Centura Bank, First Michigan Bank, and Bank of Stockton are offering compatible services with the BankNow software which consumers can download from the www.intuit.com web site or the participating banks' own Internet addresses. Both BankNow services on the Internet and for AOL members allow customers to pay their bills, check account balances, transfer money between accounts etc. BankNow is only available for modem equipped PCs running Windows 3.x or Windows 95 operating systems. The software requires 10MB of hard disk space to install, and either Netscape Navigator 2.02 or greater, or Internet Explorer 3.01 or greater browser. BankNow uses 128-bit triple DES encryption for data security. Microsoft has its own Money personal financial management software and the company has worked with Intuit in the OFX (Open Financial Exchange) standard to make sure that financial data can be freely exchanged between applications such as Money and Quicken. A note of interest here is that Microsoft has tested a piece of Internet banking software developed by a tiny company called NSys Consulting in, of all places in the world -- Malaysia, that the Redmond software giant is actually quite fond of and has made recommendations to Chase Manhattan Corp. and others. One Microsoft executive calls the package "the best Internet banking solution I've seen to date." The software -- Virtuabanker -- can be used to handle
bill payment, stock trades etc. over the Internet. A number of banks in
Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines are said to be interested in adopting
it. |
