3 August 2002

ABN Amro and E*Trade add private 'Search engines

For bankers to provide their clients with the right background data to make informed decisions and cross selling of products, accurate and fast access to information proves mission critical. Substantiating this opinion, two seperate anouncements this week from ABN Amro and E*Trade, signal a growing trend for the adoption of internal "internet" style search engine capability within the banking sector.

ABN Amro, the worlds 15th largest bank, announced that it is adopting internal search engine technology to help the bank's staff locate information and specialists within the banks knowledge base. Using "AskMe Enterprise" software from AskMe Corp, a leading provider of knowledge network software solutions, the new search facility will be integrated into areas of the bank's core IT infrastructure. Initially, the system will be piloted across the bank's wholesale, consumer and commercial operations based in the Netherlands. This in turn will provide search results from the bank's corporate finance, treasury, insurance and corporate client units.

The `AskMe Enterprise` solution enables employees within an organization to discover internal experts with the required knowledge to successfully complete their tasks. The system allows the exchange of expertise and knowledge, captures the outcome for re-use and provides analysis to help organizational productivity.

Through the use of the system ABN Amro aims to provide a single point of entry for departments within the bank to locate and capitalize on expertise and knowledge instrumental to cross-selling products. In turn this will strengthen inter-departmental relationships and improve processes that drive customer acquisition and retention. Commenting on the new search facility Bernadette Langius, Executive Vice President Intellectual Capital Development for ABN Amro, stated "ABN AMRO is on the leading edge, using innovative technology to help our client operations leverage its greatest asset, internal expertise, to better respond to our customers and improve the quality and level of service we deliver. We expect this system to be a significant investment to enhancing our day-to-day operations."

E*Trade had a different goal in mind, although cross-selling still plays an important role. Currently serving 4 Million customers spread over 12 countries, E*Trade wanted to be able to provide its customers with easier access to information held within its knowledge base. In meeting this requirement, E*Trade announced that they would be adopting the "K2 Catalog" search engine from Verity Inc. "With more than 3 Million households and 4 Million account holders, we wanted to leverage a search technology that could grow with our business and support the platform of our choosing." said E*TRADE Chief Media and Content Officer Pam Kramer. Apparantly a major deciding factor for E*Trade was that K2 software includes support for thesaurus and word-breaking in 26 languages, essential to E*Trade's multi-national client base.

Verity's K2 software has a three-tier foundation that focuses on what the company calls "social networks". This is a personalization function that connects customers to relevant internal experts. K2 can make suggestions based on search queries, such as if a customer searches for a mortgage loan, the system may also provide relevant information on home insurance, which like ABN Amro's new system, will lead to valuable cross-selling opportunities for the bank.

By coinicidence, this week also marked the 10th anivesary of Terradata, who are considered by IT industry veterans to have pioneered the technology behind many of today's cross-selling "search engines". Teradata, a division of NCR Corporation, launched their "data mining" search facilities by looking at sales data from a retailer and discovering that in the evening hours, beer and diapers were often purchased together. This relationship, called a data mining affinity, captured the imagination of industry watchers, spawning a legend that has been recounted hundreds of times and is frequently cited as the textbook example of large data base searching.