ABN Amro to Begin Pilots Of Wireless Services
Tuesday, May 8, 2001
By Deborah Bach
ABN Amro North America Inc. says it expects its new wireless services to help trim
the cost of serving customers through call centers.
On Monday the Chicago company announced that it will begin rolling out wireless
applications this month - first in a pilot program giving some mortgage customers access
to information on payment histories, due dates, escrow accounts, and tax disbursements.
ABN Amro said it plans to eventually expand that service to all of its one million
mortgage customers.
This summer, the company said, it will also begin rolling out mobile applications for
cash management. The first phase will cover basic notification services, the second,
higher-risk authorizations and approvals, and the third, transactional capabilities.
The wireless services are expected to help reduce call-center costs by letting customers
quickly conduct basic tasks themselves - freeing up costly customer calls for advice and
other individualized services.
"I think the services will deliver enhanced value to the customers, but also allow us
to focus more on valuable transactions," said Matthias Autrata, senior vice president of
ABN Amro's information technology services unit. "The customer would rather spend time
speaking to somebody about things that they are concerned about, rather than just ask
questions."
The services will be accessible through personal digital assistants and Web-enabled
phones and pagers, he said, and transactional capabilities will be determined by the
security of the various devices.
"We want to be careful we have the right level of authorization and encryption before
we move ahead," said Mr. Autrata. "We want to be as ready as the industry and technology
is ready, but we don't want to expose ourselves to unnecessary risk."
The $182 billion-asset company is considering adding wireless services in other areas,
such as personal banking, and is developing transaction applications using voice
recognition technology. Mr. Autrata said he was unsure when these programs would be rolled out.
Curious Networks, a Chicago vendor of wireless software, developed the mobile
applications for ABN Amro. Mr. Autrata said Curious was selected largely for its
technology, which is compatible with ABN Amro's platform.
David Cutler, the president and co-founder of Curious Networks, said his company
differs from competitors such as 724 Solutions Inc., a Toronto developer of wireless
financial software that has attracted many bank customers, because it builds its system
onto clients' existing applications, rather than require them to build their applications
onto new platforms.
In the case of ABN Amro, he said, this meant the company was able to keep the mortgage
and cash management applications it already used.
"To ask a customer of ours to rebuild inside of our environment is unreasonable,"
Mr. Cutler said. "With our platform, they're able to leverage what they currently have
and keep that in place."
Curious Networks, founded in September 1999 by Mr. Cutler and chief technology
officer Jeff Palmer, both former employees of Anderson Consulting, launched its first
products in January. The company has four clients in various sectors and it is in talks
with five financial services companies.
John Switzer, a vice president at the consulting firm AMS Canada Inc., said ABN
Amro's multiphase strategy is a wise one in light of the many obstacles to widespread
adoption of the wireless Web - including inadequate bandwidth, network incompatibility,
slow transmission speeds, and high costs.
But he said that ABN Amro's expectations of reducing call center costs through
wireless may be unrealistic, at least for now.
"I think the uptake is going to be so slow for the wireless Web that I just
can't see it in the near term," said Mr. Switzer. "There are just so many impediments
in the way of broader public acceptance."
|
|
