BofA gives customers smart cards

Bank of America will announce today that its biggest customers, corporations that move millions of dollars using the bank's cash management services, will be able to use smart cards for secure access to those accounts.

In its first customer use of smart cards, Bank of America's major corporate customers can use new smart-card based security and encryption to transfer funds, initiate payments, and manage their global accounts. The announcement comes today at the CardTech/SecurTech ?98 Conference.

The bank's integrated cash management service now has 600-plus large corporate clients at 1,000 sites worldwide. Smart cards, plastic cards the size of a credit card with a computer chip embedded, will be rolled out to customers in the next several months.

Smart cards will offer encryption to scramble data, authentication to verify that users are authorized to move money, allow customization, and track user access.

Companies using cash management and foreign exchange services from Bank of America, which has a merger pending with NationsBank, will be offered customizable smart cards and smart-card readers that can be inserted directly into a PC disk drive.