Bankoh farms out
credit card work

A Georgia-based firm
gets the contract

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Bank of Hawaii has contracted with a mainland firm to process the bank's credit card and debit card accounts.

That work at the bank employs 42 whose jobs will be lost. However, the bank has been working to place them in other jobs since February, when it announced restructuring plans that included outsourcing some services, said Ed Brown, vice president in charge of card holder services.

"So far we've placed at least 20 somewhere else" in the bank, he said.

The outsourcing of the card-processing work to Columbus, Ga.-based Total System Services Inc. won't increase job cuts beyond those announced earlier this year, he said.

The bank's parent, Pacific Century Financial Corp., announced in February it planned to cut 550 jobs over a two-year period. Company officials say they are trying to let attrition, such as retirements, account for as many of the job cuts as possible. Although many of the cuts are coming from the merger of the First Federal Savings & Loan subsidiary into Bank of Hawaii, Pacific Century said in February that 40 to 60 would come from having outside contractors perform services such as credit card processing.

Competitor First Hawaiian Bank said it too will soon outsource its credit card handling, also with Total System Services, and hopes to place the staff of eight to 10 people in other jobs. First Hawaiian said it will keep its telephone-answering clerks locally, said Ed Pei, First Hawaiian senior vice president for electronic banking.

Bank of Hawaii said its contractors will handle that side of the work on the mainland as well as the computer processing.

The Bank of Hawaii contract, announced today, will go into effect in November and customers will see some improvements, Brown said.

"With the new enhanced system, we'll be able to offer additional benefits, such as extended warranties, purchase protection, travel insurance and so on," he said.

A newly designed statement will give more information in a clearer way, he said, such as easy-to-follow information on foreign exchange transactions for customers who use their cards overseas.

Total System Service said it will use a recently developed Year 2000-compliant computer system to handle the transactions.

Traded on the New York Stock Exchange, Total System Service said it handles accounts for more than 96 million card holders. The company is 81 percent owned by Synovus Financial Corp., also based in Columbus, which owns 34 banks.