Charter One Bank and Metavante ink Web hosting deal

Charter One Bank has signed a long-term agreement with Metavante Electronic Banking to provide consumer and small business Internet banking hosting services, which continues and expands the bank's Internet banking program. Charter One will run these applications in the Metavante application service provider (ASP) environment.

Charter One and Metavante, the financial technology subsidiary of Marshall & Ilsley Corp., have also agreed to partner on the development and deployment of new electronic banking technology. In service since December 15, 2000, Charter One's e-banking service already has approximately 275,000 users and is consistently rated by Gomez, Inc. as one of the top 10 Internet bank sites.

The first co-development project--with Centerpost, a Chicago-based provider of automated communications solutions--will allow Charter One's online banking customers to receive automatic notification of important account activity through their choice of communications channels. Centerpost is best known for its work in the travel industry, providing a full array of flight alerts for United Airlines, Travelocity and others.

Starting in late summer, Charter One plans to offer customers the ability to receive a wide range of important account information such as recent transactions, low balances, deposits, and new e-bill arrivals through voice phone, fax, pager, PDA and email.

"This won't be your typical low-balance alert via e-mail," said Michael Dobbins, senior vice president at $38 billion Charter One. "Customers will be able to use this push technology to receive a phone call each morning telling them their balance and allowing them to press a phone key to hear the previous day's transactions." Charter One online banking customers will be able to access the free service from the bank's site, so they can choose to be alerted to various account activity.

"The flexibility of our solution architecture allows us to quickly expand our offering by integrating with third-party solutions, like those from Centerpost," said Linda Fischer, vice president and general manager, Metavante Electronic Banking.

Metavante Electronic Banking provides online banking and cash management solutions for financial services providers and their consumer, business, and corporate customers. Clients include more than 450 financial institutions, including 18 of the top 20 U.S. banks.