Comerica Licenses Corillian Software

As part of a plan to bring its online operations in-house and to enhance online banking services, Comerica has licensed Corillian's Voyager platform. The Detroit-based bank expects the new system to go live later this year.

The Voyager system will replace Comerica's current hybrid solution, which has a number of limitations, chiefly that it doesn't offer customers real-time online access to their accounts.

The new system will continue to offer the services Comerica customers currently enjoy-including bill payment, statements, and funds transfer-but it will give Comerica customers that golden key of online banking: real-time access to account information.

The platform will also allow Comerica to offer its customers a variety of other enhanced services, such as expanded account access, more opportunities to interact with the customer service center via e-mail, an improved navigational experience, expanded funds transfer capabilities, and online stop payments.

Because the new system will be managed and supported in-house by its staff, Comerica will have more control over future developments in the system, and it will offer the company the opportunity to develop its own internal staff resources. It will also ensure consistency between all of Comerica's banking services.

"We're really trying to bring all applications in-house," said Donovan Shand, vice president of online banking at $50 billion Comerica. "It gives us an opportunity to leverage internal skill sets and internal development. It also provides customers with a consistent experience across all our various channels."

Another of Comerica's primary goals is to ensure that Web banking is seamlessly integrated with the rest of the customer's overall banking experience. With the Corillian system, all checking account customers will be pre-enrolled in online banking, thus streamlining the enrollment process and saving customers time and effort.

"One of the things we've found in our customer surveys is that the initial experience of signing up and signing on has an impact," said Shand.

"We're trying to make that easier and faster. What we're looking at doing is providing Internet banking as a component of all checking accounts," he added.

Comerica chose Corillian, according to Shand, because of the quality of its implementation and project management staff, its customer care tools, and its focus on providing solid Internet banking products to consumers and small businesses.

"Comerica's customers will notice enhanced performance, and new functionalities when Voyager is implemented," said Matt Cone, chief evangelist at Portland, Ore.-based Corillian.

Formed in 1997 as a spin-off of CheckFree, Corillian specializes in scalable, extendable e-finance software. Voyager was its first and is still one of its primary offerings; the current version, Voyager 3.0, is built on Microsoft's Windows 2000 and SQL Server platform.