Haha, all you newbs who think online banking got started with the Internet era...
Pronto was the name of an online banking system from Chemical Bank. They called it "The Home Banking System". While the ad above from 1984 is promoting software for Apple and IBM PC computers, it actually got its start on Atari computers in 1982. This was considered to be the first personal computer based banking system.
This reminds me vaguely of the first time I saw my friend's Commodore 64. This would have been some time in 1985 and I asked him what this brown boxy looking thing next to the Commodore was. He told me it was something you could use to break into banks and stuff. It was a modem. I'm pretty sure I didn't use a computer to access a bank until my bank started offering online services some time well after the year 2000. I don't remember when it was actually but it wasn't THAT long ago.
While sounding vaguely familiar, I wasn't even sure who Chemical Bank was. Apparently, it was founded in 1823 as the New York Chemical Manufacturing Company by Balthazar P. Melick. Anybody else think that Balthazar is a bad-ass name or is that just me? At the end of 1995 it was the 3rd largest bank in the U.S. At that time, Chemical acquired Chase Manhattan to create the largest financial institution in the U.S. and started using that name.
Anyway, Chemical's initial online banking system wasn't terribly popular. Part of the reason was the high subscription fees. By 1984 it was "only" $12 a month but I believe it was even higher earlier on. This service carried on in one form or another until 1989 when it was discontinued. But in the early 1980s, they were decades ahead of their time.
The ad above is from the June 1984 issue of Family Computing. Check out this New York Times article from December 7th, 1983 on this system.
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