By Art Gillis

The following list came from my regular reading of eight trade journals back in 1999. These were considered fresh and hot things on the bank tech menu. In order to give some flavor to the list, I spiced it up with one man’s opinion of how each technology evolved in seven years.

1. Migrating to client/server technology -- Everyone didn’t do it and it wasn’t the revolution most people expected.
2. Database marketing -- Lots of noise, little implementation, mostly because bankers wanted to know “Which function key do I hit to do some marketing?” It’s a lot harder than that.
3. The Internet as a medium for banking -- Not overnight, but growing at the bankers’ pace, which, like ATMs, took 12 years to mature.
4. Image technology (checks and docs) -- A home run with one man on base (faster Check 21 implementation would have made it a grand slam).
5. Profitability systems -- Like a good diet and exercise regimen. Everyone talks about it, but few
do it. Vendor offerings are probably the best at it. It’s bankers who are the problem.
6. The future of branches -- Some said it was dead, and the herd listened, but the opposite happened. Banking is still a people business even though the Internet was supposed to make banking people-less.
7. The implementation and management of LANs and WANs -- Implementation occurred for good reason, but management of them became an added burden.
8. Home banking -- It’s not called that anymore because it’s now called In-your-car banking or office banking or waiting-in-line banking, anywhere else but home where we just want to have fun.
9. Reengineering the bank -- A good title for a book, but platform automation vendors and imaging vendors did more to change workflow than any industrial engineer. If tech vendors didn’t exist, I’d love to own a feather-plucking franchise to produce quill pens for 17,823 banks.
10. Video conferencing kiosks -- A dud.
11. Converting to Asynchronous Transfer Mode network technology -- Any improvement in network technology will be a good thing for systems users.
12. Object technology -- Did anyone notice? Most bankers were buying “subject” technology.
13. Shifting routine human teller transactions to ATMs -- Let’s face it, the ATM is still a cash machine and that’s OK.
14. Increased automation support in the lending functions -- Some vendors did more than others,
and in my opinion, there can’t be too much additional work in this area.
15. Customer retention through comprehensive database activity -- A myth. Saying “Have a nice day” is just as effective.
16. Electronic Data Interchange and eCommerce -- Slow to develop enough steam to undo old systems because these are not plug-in technologies. The environment has to change first.
17. Integration of customer databases -- When reporters stop using the word “silos,” then you’ll know it happened. Or maybe I have a personal bias. The bank that has my 13 accounts still doesn’t recognize my largest account. Duh!
18. Electronic check presentment -- A great idea, but wimpy volumes. Even in the fifties, computers were screaming, “Give me your volumes, your tedious work, your brainless processing.”
19. Smart cards -- Dumb ideas. When a piece of plastic does a great job, (debit/credit) take it to the next level of uselessness.
20. Increasing technology’s ability to displace people-based activities -- Where do I start? The high volume people-reducer technologies have already done their job. Now new technologies will replace a small number of clerical people, but the technologies will need expensive support people to keep them working.
The fantasy equation: 2 hi-tech people minus 6 clerical people = 0 savings.
21. Data warehousing -- A good technology that is used only by banks who have smart people.
22. Call centers -- It worked so well in the underemployed communities of the U.S. that it is now offshored to Tom Friedman’s flat world.

I’m making my list for 2006. See ya in 2013.

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