ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, April 9, 1997 TAG: 9704090041
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: PATRICIA LAMIELL ASSOCIATED PRESS
These small devices will let you do what an ATM will do, including "dispensing" cash onto a plastic debit card.
A group of companies on Tuesday announced they have developed technology that can turn almost any personal computer into an automatic teller machine.
Called MoneyClip, it will allow its users ``to perform virtually any ATM transaction from the comfort of their homes,'' said Daniel M. Schley, chairman and chief executive of Home Financial Network Inc., one of the device's four developers.
Consumers can buy devices that attach to a PC and allow them to check an account balance, pay bills, transfer funds between accounts, or download electronic ``cash'' onto what's known as a smart card. The smart card, a plastic card embedded with a silicon chip, can then be used to make a purchase over the Internet or as cash at merchants that accept them.
But the devices on the market now have to be hooked up to a computer port, take up desk space and are not portable.
By contrast, MoneyClip is a portable diskette that carries a smart card and the software necessary to access a bank account. It can be fed into the floppy drive of any PC.
It will be available this fall. But, its creators concede, there will be hurdles to its widespread use.
In order to use MoneyClip, a PC has to be loaded with on-line banking software, and the user must have an account at a bank that offers on-line banking.
Schley said MoneyClip developers have established relationships with 20 of the 50 largest banks in the United States, but no banks have signed on to offer the service.
Another hurdle is that smart cards, although popular in Europe and Japan, are not widely accepted in the United States. Only a handful of merchants, most in pilot projects in Atlanta and San Francisco, have invested in the devices they need to process transactions at the point of sale.
``It's a chicken-and-egg issue,'' said Joseph E. Smith, executive vice president for electronic commerce at InteliData, another MoneyClip developer.
Makers of MoneyClip have chosen to put the cards in consumers hands first in the hope that more customers will start demanding that merchants accept them.
The other developers are V-ONE, which makes the security features; and Fischer International, which makes the smart card reader. It will retail for $59.95.
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS. John Backus, president of InteliDataby CNBof Herndon, Va., shows the new MoneyClip. color.