Telephone lines provide alternative to bank lines: banks ponder additional phone services for customers.

Telephone banking is a booming convenience tool for bank customers as the variety of transactions customers can conduct by telephone steadily grows.

"We handle over 4 million phone calls a month," said Gina De La Cruz, senior vice president, central customer service, of Security Pacific Bank of Los Angeles.

Customer use of the system has increased by 10 percent each year since the system was introduced in 1987 and it's currently used on a regular basis by 60 percent of the bank's clientele, De La Cruz said.

Nearly everything that can be done in person at a bank can be handled by phone, she said. Services that phone systems offer include account balances, interest-paid information, check information, information regarding notes on bank statements, reversal of service charges, stop payments and purchasing checking supplies from the bank.

Another large California bank, Wells Fargo & Co. of San Francisco, offers customers more than 150 banking functions by telephone, said Kathy Shilkret, a Wells Fargo spokeswoman.

She said the service most in demand by bank customers is checking of account activity to see which checks have cleared and which deposits have been posted.

De La Cruz said Security Pacific is currently contemplating providing additional services by phone, though she would not elaborate on what services may be offered.

Telephone bank lines typically have a two-track system: a computerized automated response system which allows customers to make a series of selections by pushing buttons and selecting from a number of options, plus a live operator for customers who feel uncomfortable with the computerized system or who need more information than a machine can provide.

The trend, however, is for the computerized system to handle a widening variety of services. De La Cruz noted that, starting this month, customers will be able to use the automated response unit to stop payment on checks.

De La Cruz said that 70 percent of the bank's telephone banking activity is handled with the auto response unit.

One limitation of the Security Pacific automated response unit is its multilingual capacity. The system only functions in English and Spanish, while live service representatives can answer questions in 14 different languages, De La Cruz said. Transactions not yet offered over the phone tend to be more complex and require a high level of security.

For example, De La Cruz said, ordering business checks is still done only in person because of the large amounts of money involved and security risks.

Security of telephone transactions has been a concern for some consumer groups, which charge that crooks can easily enter the system.

In June, a survey by consumer advocate group Consumer Action found that only two of 13 major California financial institutions with interactive phone banking required personal identification numbers similar to those required of automated teller machine users for entry into the system.

The other 11 institutions only required a customer's Social Security and bank account numbers, data that is easily obtained by criminals, Consumer Action officials noted.

Shilkret noted, however, that some banks, such as Wells Fargo, will generate a personal identification number for customers and integrate it into the bank's identity check upon request.

In addition to providing additional customer service, De La Cruz said, phone banking services pay for themselves in reducing security and training costs.

The computerized system, she added, has freed up operators to spend more time on complex calls and has improved morale.

While most large banks systems are similar, De La Cruz noted that banks do compete on how easily services can be used and the number of transactions which can be performed on their systems.