Let's play word association. When you hear "Chase Manhattan," do you think "financial giant"? "Global behemoth," perhaps? How about "e-business lightweight"?
The US$400 billion enterprise, the second-largest bank in the United States, is certainly a financial services force to be reckoned with. Until recently, however, even top Chase officials admit that the company was a bit of an e-business pipsqueak.
"Last year at this time, we were a 90-pound weakling in the area of e-business," said Fred Loder, director of the New York-based bank's Internet Management Group, the division responsible for the creation and maintenance of its e-business website, Chase.com. "Today, we're leaner and meaner, and we have a lot more meat on our bones."
Indeed, in the last 16 months, Chase has engineered an impressive e-business turnaround. Not only has the bank relaunched its core Chase Online Banking site, but it has also beefed up its e-business profile with a slew of new online applications that are making it easier for consumers to manage all their accounts in one online location and to engage in e-commerce. Those new applications include e-wallets that store credit card information for easy shopping and account aggregation services that make it easier for customers to manage their entire portfolios - even accounts at other institutions - at the Chase site. Chase has even launched its own e-tailing site for consumers. And the bank has assumed a business-to-business leadership role, providing financial services to several e-marketplaces, heading a financial services industry authentication standard initiative and an online bill payment initiative.
As a result, Chase, once not much more than an e-business bystander, has caught up with major competitors such as Citi Group and Wells Fargo & Co., and, experts say, is on the verge of surging ahead. Already, Chase has more than 75 million online customers.
