Subject: IBM to Unveil Internet Banking Alliance
Telecom-Digest: Volume 16, Issue 471
IBM to unveil Internet banking alliance
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuter) - International Business Machines Corp. has
made an alliance with more than a dozen major banks to provide
consumer banking services using Internet technology, IBM and industry
executives said Friday.
The consortium will be dubbed Integrity and will be owned equally by
IBM and each of the partners.
Banks will be able to use IBM's worldwide private network as well as
the Internet to enable their customers to do their banking electroni-
cally. Specific details of the banking arrangement have yet to be
worked out, one of the executives said.
IBM and the banking instititutions involved are due to unveil the
Integrity project in New York on Monday.
The alliance is one of several industry projects that IBM's Internet
Division is establishing to help large companies utilize the Internet.
The banking alliance will have competition from other electronic
banking services being organized by companies like Intuit Corp.,
America Online Inc. and Microsoft Corp.
Just this week, Intuit and America Online said a number of leading
financial institutions would offer their customers online banking via
AOL, using software developed by Intuit known as BankNOW.
At an Internet and Electronic Commerce conference in San Francisco
this week, Intuit Chairman Scott Cook said the new service targets
people who want to use electronic transactions to speed up their
banking.
Cook said he expects the new service will differ from what the IBM-led
consortium might provide.
NationsBank has been among companies frequently mentioned as
participating in the IBM consortium, but a spokesman late on Friday
declined to discuss a Wall Street Journal report that it would be
involved in the consortium.