InformationWeek

March 15, 1999

Banking On Closeness

Corepoint, Calico tackle financial services customer-relationship management

By Jeff Sweat

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orepoint Technologies and Calico Software Inc. are readying customer-relationship management products that meet the specialized needs of banks and financial services. Financial services need industry-specific customer-relationship management packages, analysts say, in part because banking doesn't revolve around product delivery as much as other businesses. "The contact and relationship with customers is different," says Peggy Menconi, an analyst with AMR Research Inc. "You have to have a CRM product that understands that."

Corepoint, the company IBM formed last fall to tackle customer-relationship management, rolled out Corepoint Banking Solutions earlier this month. The product is the first of a number of such vertical-market applications from IBM. Corepoint will address every channel that may touch customers to help users give customers a consistent interface with their banking applications.

"This will let us put in place a single entry point to these back-end systems," says Bernie McGarrigle, VP and manager of emerging technology for U.S. Bancorp in Minneapolis.

Corepoint Banking Solutions is available now. Pricing, which varies by implementation size and number of users, is roughly $250,000 for 100 branches and a 100-seat call center, and $1 million for 1,000 branches and a 1,000-seat call center.

Calico Software will disclose this week that it has licensed its eSales Suite to Merrill Lynch & Co. The companies are entering into a partnership in which Merrill Lynch will help tailor the product for the financial market and take an active role in Calico's business strategy and software development.