electronic banking, The EasyLink Banking Centre, was unveiled yesterday after a ribbon-cutting by the Mayor of Hamilton, the Rt. Wor. William de V Frith, at the bank's Par-La-Ville branch.

"It took us about two years of planning and then six to eight months to get it up and running,'' said vice president and head of retail delivery, Charline Asphall, adding: "We had to redesign the entire ground floor. But there is enough space here to do other things.

"The business banking centre will open October or November, with construction going on now.'' Most of the money, some $800,000, is being spent on the restructuring of the Par-La-Ville Branch, including the $300,000 for the EasyLink Banking Centre.

The other two projects include the Dockyard mini-branch which opens next week and the re-designing of the Church Street branch.

"We have about 65 to 68 percent of our retail transactions now occurring on our electronic platform,'' said general manager, banking (Bermuda), Danny A.

Fox.

"We've seen over the last year or so a major shift by our customers to more use of electronic banking.'' But even with the increasing dependence on technology, the bank will still begin two hours of service from actual tellers or "customer care representatives'' on Saturdays at the EasyLink Centre.

The bank's CEO, Henry Smith, said: "The end situation is to have tellers used for more complex transactions that cannot be done electronically. Then we are getting more value out of the tellers we have invested money in training.

"Instead of them cashing cheques all day, they will be processing drafts and selling some of our other products.'' The bank said customers will take more advantage of their EasyLink cards for electronic banking opportunities that now include five automatic teller machines, two direct dialling telephones for telephone banking service, a deposit facility and an Internet viewing screen with global financial news.

The telephone banking service, which customers can use to get banking done from their home touch-tone telephones using their EasyLink card, is already leading to staff increases in the call centre section of the bank.

Officials expect increasing demand for this service.

The Par-La-Ville branch's opening this fall of a business banking centre will also offer one-stop banking for commercial clients, including deposits, collections, and coin requests.

BANKING ON TECHNOLOGY -- Bank of Bermuda Ltd. chairman, Eldon Trimingham (left), and CEO, Henry Smith, cheered the opening of the bank's new EasyLink Banking Centre at the Par-LaVille branch, as the ceremonial ribbon was cut by the Mayor of Hamilton, the Rt. Wor. William Frith, yesterday.