If managers stopped to think how much time — and money — they lost while their employees queued up in the bank on a Friday to cash or deposit their pay cheques, they would be lining up to use technology to handle their payrolls.

That’s the view of HSBC Bank of Bermuda, which says its new technology platform is ideal for managing large and small payrolls.

Sean Lee, head of business and commercial banking, said: “We shifted over to a completely new technology platform last year and at the TechShowcase we are going to be introducing three new Internet channels.

“Personal Internet banking, business Internet banking and there is another type of business Internet banking called HSBC Net,” Mr. Lee said.

“The difference really is very large local companies like XL Capital or Ace will need to be on HSBC Net, a local company that did not have a large payroll, like a small construction company, would do great on Business Internet Banking.

“So the point for us is to get out the facts of those three new platforms and encourage people to use them.”

BoB Events coordinator Katrina Simons said that during Techweek, Bank of Bermuda is also hosting two lunch and learn sessions, which will focus on personal Internet banking.

When asked how the three differed, Mr. Lee said: “For Personal Internet Banking and Business Internet Banking, those run on the same system.

“This is all new, and it is the HSBC model, so the great news for us is, if we wanted to upgrade (before), we had to pay for the entire upgrade, but under the new system we are sharing the rest of the upgrade with the whole of HSBC. So it is far less expensive for us and our customers.

“So when we shifted over to the new system, we decreased the cost of online banking for individuals, local businesses and international businesses, because we are now spending less money to maintain the individual systems.”

When travelling, there are additional advantages, said Mr. Lee.

“If you are travelling to the US, you can order cash, you can go online and say which branch you want to pick it up at and walk right in and pick it up,” he said. “You can order cheque books online, you can open up new accounts online — it is a lot more sophisticated than the old system was, it has a lot more capability.”

The main motive is to get people out of the banking halls and onto their computers as much as possible.

“We want to encourage more people to get online, because then you can bank when you want to,” he said.

“We have found that a lot of homes have the Internet, but the same number of people don’t bank online. I used to live in the United States, but I stopped going to branches about ten years ago, because you can do so much online.

“You can pay your staff online, you can pay your staff online, if you know you are going away, you can set it up to pay all of your bills 45 days in advance... and you can also cancel the payments, if need be.”

On a green note, Mr. Lee, said clients could also have their bank statements delivered to them electronically, rather than through the post.

“If we had as much people who shifted over to the Internet, shift over to Internet banking, then we would say a huge amount of trees,” he said.

The new systems also run well on Apple Macintosh computers, explained Mr. Lee. “That was a criticism of our old systems, and both of our new systems do.”

They have had a lot of companies sign up and he said they were thinking that the TechShowcase was a great way to get people or companies to sign up or for people who advise them to see how the new system works.

Mr. Lee also pointed out that there was an online facility for wiring money online. For more information visit www.bankofbermuda.com.