North America Bytes

ABN AMRO North America has selected TouchPoint Sales Management from Atlanta-based WebTone Technologies as its platform for managing sales activities. The bank plans to roll out TouchPoint Sales Management throughout its 390 branches in Michigan, Illinois and Indiana.

TouchPoint Sales Management is the TouchPoint, component that facilitates tight coordination between corporate sales objectives and multi-channel sales management. The solution supports multiple levels of the sales and marketing process and provides tools for campaign generation and tracking, employee and organizational performance management, contact management, and referral tracking. In addition, TouchPoint Sales Management allows institutions to capitalize on marketplace knowledge by identifying, capturing, and disseminating "best practices" throughout their sales and marketing channels.

"ABN AMRO has matured its marketing analytics and local market sales processes over a number of years," said Al Harker, EVP Retail Banking at ABN AMRO North America. "Our biggest challenge has been getting the marketing analytics and sales management processes to work in tandem with each other. TouchPoint Sales Management will close this loop."

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JPMorgan, the investment banking arm of JP Morgan Chase & Co., has implemented Siebel eFinance, a CRM solution from Siebel Systems, a Los Angeles-based provider of multichannel eBusiness applications software.

Siebel eFinance-a version of Siebel eBusiness Applications uniquely configured for the banking industry-will provide a single client relationship management (CRM) platform across JPMorgan's Investment Bank. Named "The Relationship Exchange," this system serves as the vehicle for coverage teams across the firm to communicate and collaborate electronically about clients and serves as a one-stop resource for client information.

JPMorgan configured Siebel eFinance to meet its specific business needs, including integrating multiple global systems, and thus created a complex visibility model to safeguard highly sensitive information, while remaining high-performance and user-friendly. The Relationship Exchange is on the desktops of more than 10,000 bankers in more than 50 locations around the globe.

"The Relationship Exchange is an outstanding system that supports our client relationship management efforts," said Doug Braunstein, head of Investment Banking Coverage for JPMorgan. "By centralizing our client information, we are better able to serve our clients. It is also an essential tool to measure the effectiveness and productivity of our client coverage activities."

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First Citizens Bank, a subsidiary of First Citizens BancShares, has signed a software license agreement with Metavante Corporation, Milwaukee, for its next-generation document composition software--Metavante CSF Communication Designer.

CSF Communication Designer will allow First Citizens to develop dynamic, personalized, and Internet-enabled customer communications--such as bills, statements, letters, notices, direct mail, booklets, and brochures--for its banking customers. This functionality works across all LAN/WAN systems in a collaborative environment, allowing multiple users to create, review, and approve documents from any location.

"Our decision to choose CSF Communication Designer from Metavante was based on the company's stable reputation and proven track record of providing high-quality products and services," said David Park, manager of Business and Technology Solutions at First Citizens Bank. "We discovered that other providers offered similar services, but we liked the flexibility the Metavante design will provide us as we develop our next generation of customer communications."

First Citizens is one of the largest banks in the United States and operates more than 340 retail banking offices in North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. Metavante is the financial technology subsidiary of Marshall & Ilsley Corporation.