ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Wednesday, August 14, 1996             TAG: 9608140019
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: B8   EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: ATLANTA 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS

SOME SOUGHT MEDALS, OTHERS REACHED FOR PLASTIC

THE OLYMPICS TESTED not only athletes' speed, strength and endurance, but also consumers' acceptance of another card for buying.

Kerri Strug's vault and Carl Lewis' jump? Not bad for Olympic moments.

For bankers, though, the real thrill at the Atlanta Games was seeing fans paying for hot dogs and frozen lemonade with newfangled pieces of plastic called ``smart cards.''

The bank industry has been promoting the cards, which store dollars on a chip and electronically deduct them for purchases, as a convenient alternative to cash for small purchases. Three major regional banks as well as Visa used the Atlanta Olympics as the first large test market for the cards.

Though final figures have not been released, the companies all say the response was strong enough to convince them that smart cards have a future.

Visa, for one, plans another major test this year in New York.

Even the most enthusiastic proponents of smart cards, however, acknowledge it will take considerable time for them to gain broad acceptance.

``We're not disappointed. We're not jumping up and down, either,'' said Nancy Poe, vice president for electronic banking at Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Wachovia Corp. ``The numbers were OK.''

Bank officials say credit cards and ATM cards also took years to find their place in the country's wallets.

``There will be a long-term program in terms of people accepting the product, and this was one way to gauge their reaction,'' said Scott Scredon, a spokesman for Charlotte, N.C.-based NationsBank Corp., which as an Olympic sponsor had exclusive rights to sell the cards inside competition venues.

The banks, which also included Charlotte-based First Union Corp., went to great lengths to make sure people knew about the cards, advertising them heavily months before the games began. About 83,000 spectators at the opening ceremony found a complimentary $5 card from NationsBank waiting at their seats. Smart card dispensers were at most Olympic venues.

The message didn't get through to everyone.

``They would be terrible for me,'' said Myla Bennett of Watkinsville, Ga., who attended Olympic basketball and volleyball events but did not use a smart card. ``If I had another card to keep up with, I'd go insane. I learned a long time ago the best way for me is to keep cash.''

Merchants equipped with smart card terminals reported modest activity during the games.

Marty Craig, manager of a Chick-Fil-A restaurant within walking distance of three downtown Atlanta Olympic venues as well as Centennial Olympic Park, said he took in about $200 a day from customers with smart cards.

``Compared to what we're doing overall, we're doing only 1 percent of sales'' from the cards, he said.

Nearby, Jock's and Jill's Sports Grill did not accept the card. Assistant manager Terry Deardon said few patrons asked about them.

``In the two weeks prior to and during Olympic activity, I've received a maximum of 10 requests for the cash card,'' Deardon said.

Visa said there were 260,000 smart card transactions in Atlanta in July, up from 50,000 in June. The Olympics were from July 19 to Aug. 4.

David Melancon, a Visa spokesman, said a survey by the credit card company indicated that 70 percent of Atlanta residents were aware of the card and 21 percent would use one. The major complaint was that too few stores accepted the cards, he said,

``As problems go, that's a great one to have,'' Melancon said.

Some cashiers did not know how to process the card. And there was one case where someone spilled a soda on one terminal and knocked out a bank of them.

But, Melancon said, ``There were no major glitches.''

The New York test, planned during the last three months of this year and focusing on a 30-block area of the Upper West Side, will take smart cards a step further. Most of the cards distributed in Atlanta were disposable; Visa wants to see how New Yorkers respond to cards that can be reloaded at ATMs.

``While Atlanta was about awareness, New York is going to be about really testing how people live with this in an everyday environment,'' Melancon said.

LENGTH: Medium:   82 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:   AP Visa and NationsBank tested smart cards with Olympic
          scenes at the Olympics. Finance companies and merchants said they 
          remain optimistic that the cards will catch on with consumers.   
          color