Title: Research director, TowerGroup e-Banking, Needham, MA
Reorganization: Research and consulting firm TowerGroup is launching a host of new services focused on Internet-based electronic commerce. "We didn't feel we could do justice to this within the context of our existing services," says Bell.
Consumers: He was promoted from senior analyst to lead the first of the new initiatives. TowerGroup e-Banking provides research and advice to retail banks and consumer credit companies. Later this year, the firm will launch similar services for online brokerage, insurance and wholesale banking.
Focus: Bell looks at Internet and like technology's impact on the banking business, IT systems and vendors, and electronic bill payment and presentment. The latter, he says, "will define where e-banking is going. EBPP is one of the big things that the Internet is all about."
Challenge: "The rules are changing in such a profound way that banks risk the very fundamentals of their business propositions," Bell says. "On EBPP, they can't afford to lose, because they'd lose the last exclusive factor they have-access to the payment system. Institutions need to come to grips with some realities that I think they've been reluctant to face."
E Background: Bell, who calls his age "on the high side of 50," is a banking software expert with a wide variety of experience, including running his own software firm. He has developed branch automation and loan origination systems, and he says, "I was involved in a lot of the early development of Internet applications at an excruciatingly detailed level."
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