FREE online courses on the Basics of a Computer - COMPUTER APPLICATIONS - Banking

 

Banks were among the first large organizations to invest heavily in computing and today is almost totally dependent on the computer. In the past a large but manageable amount of book-keeping was handled manually, but such has been the expansion in banking that a huge labor force would be needed to tackle today's massive volume of book-keeping. The computer is necessary because there is no other way of dealing with the problem. In most instances, the computer insisted centrally. Branches are equipped them to interrogate the central system for information on such things as current balances, deposits, overdrafts, interest charges, shares and trustee records. Under computer control, customer statements are prepared and printed out onto specially designed stationery. Checks are handled by computers at the clearing banks, a mammoth operation normally carried out during the night when the system can concentrate on this purpose. The checks are sorted out into branch and then customer order and returned to the branches the next day. The computer also provides each branch and its customers, with prompt access to information from a much wider financial world than would be possible under a manual, local system. New developments such as the automatic cash dispenser are making it even easier for customers to deal with banks.

 

Leading international banks and financial institutions are able to obtain up-to-date news on foreign currency rates from the world's money markets using an on-link worldwide information retrieval service. London, New York, Zurich, Frankfurt and Hong Kong are the major sites in the network with each city servicing its own and neighboring countries. Data is entered and received using visual display terminals, and the processed data is held on disk storage at the central sites.