Want A Loan? Just Push The Button
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday April 19, 1994
In future, banking customers will see and hear, but never meet, their bank managers, if a new high-tech branch opened yesterday in Sydney's northern suburbs catches on.
Citibank launched its vision of what getting a mortgage may be like in the 21st century. The traditional interview with the bank manager has been replaced with video conferencing, touch screens and interactive computers.
The bank believes its high-tech branch in Chatswood outstrips even those set up in New York and Silicon Valley.
The move may be a big step towards making personal banking available on home television screens.
The Personal Banking Centre gives access to bank managers for a range of banking and mortgage advice through the use of video-conferencing facilities more usually found in company boardrooms.
The facilities, touch-sensitive screens and other technological devices mean the prospective customer at the branch can see and hear the banker while the banker is sitting in Citibank's head office in the CBD.
In a process similar to a phone call with pictures, the customer can sit in a private banking booth and talk to the banker live on the screen. When contracts or documents need to be sent, they can be scanned by the booth and transmitted into the banker's office or printed out by the booth.
Customers can open accounts or investment packages immediately, although mortgage applications will still take at least 24 hours to be decided.
The personal bankers, who will be available from 7.30 am to 9 pm seven days a week, have all had experience as branch managers.
The chairman of Citibank, Mr Brian Clayton, said that after the initial settling-in period there would be only two people in the Chatswood branch during some business hours.
"As cable and other forms of television delivery become available this technology could be used in the home," he said.
Ms Susan Power, one of the first six bankers to be trained in the technology, said she thought she would be busy after customers realised they could deal with experienced managers at their convenience.
Ms Power has worked in banking for 20 years and has been the branch manager of Citibank's Parramatta office.
One of the few things the customer will not be able to do is have the traditional cup of tea with their bank manager - or, as one of the trial customers tried to do, shake the banker's hand.
© 1994 Sydney Morning Herald
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