Dao Heng Bank plans to spend US$1.2 million in the first two phases of its Internet consumer-banking services, according to a senior official. The bank has teamed up with the Nasdaq-listed BroadVision as its technology partner. Chief information officer David Tsui said phase one of the service would be launched in the first quarter next year and would include basic functions such as balance inquiry, fund transfers, credit-card repayment and bonus points redemption, and local share trading. Advanced functions such as foreign-exchange trading would be added in the next phase to be launched on a later date. Mr Tsui said a feature of the bank's service different to that of its competitors was that it would be built on BroadVision's 'One-To-One Enterprise' relationship-management system. This system allows a customer to personalise his or her Web page to access the bank's products - to become a 'Personal Financial Portal' - in areas of page layout design and functions, in an effort to provide better-tailored services. Mr Tsui said that within the first five years of the launch the bank expected to see the creation of between 100,000 and 200,000 Internet banking accounts, and about 20 to 30 per cent of its consumer banking transactions being done on the Internet. He said it would be difficult to quantify the improvement in the bank's cost-to-income ratio and cost of acquiring new customers, but a rough idea would be that an Internet transaction cost only one-tenth of that of a branch transaction. Mr Tsui admitted the bank was not able to launch its service as soon as its competitors because it had missed a September 30 deadline. He said the Hong Kong Monetary Authority had discouraged banks from launching Internet services in the fourth quarter for fear they would increase the burden on computer systems and staff. Instead, the authority wanted to see banks concentrate on issues relating to the transition of their systems into the new millennium. BANKING
