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Last year N.C.R. announced an automation system for banks, the first such system for "the world's biggest bookkeeping job"—the handling of ten billion checks (total amount: $2.5 trillion) cashed yearly in the U.S. In N.C.R.'s system, which soon will go to work in banks, each check is imprinted with code numbers that identify the bank, the signer, the number of the transaction. Sorting machines, which N.C.R. developed jointly with Pitney-Bowes and General Electric, then use electronic eyes to "read" code numbers, sort checks or deposit slips at the rate of 7,500 per hour v. 500 by hand. Then, using N.C.R.'s Post-Tronic, which is already in use, the checks are posted to the bank's records and the customer's account. In only two years, 800 U.S. banks have invested more than $40 million for 3,434 Post-Tronic units, boosting N.C.R.'s machine sales by 5%.
By 1960 the system will be enlarged to automate almost all banking office work. Coming out next year is a new unit that will print the dollar amount of each check in magnetic ink. Checks will not only be sorted electronically, but added up as well. By 1960, N.C.R. will add still other units to electronically sort and record virtually all money movements in the bank and with other automated banks.
Favors for Foreigners. N.C.R. still rings up almost half its gross on the trusty mechanical cash register—a rapidly changing device itself. A year ago, N.C.R. put on the market a $2,000 register that automatically calculates change from a transaction, dispenses the coins. Around the world, 4,500,000 N.C.R. registers are in daily use.
To businessmen abroad, N.C.R. is as well known as Coca-Cola, and so is Chairman Chick Allyn, an articulate advocate of freer trade who has served as U.S. representative on the U.N. Economic Commission for Europe and UNESCO. Allyn can really document the value of freer trade. In 104 foreign countries, N.C.R. employs 22,000 (of whom only six are Americans), draws 40% of its sales and 50% of its profits—much of them reinvested abroad. "We often adapt our production to individual foreign needs," says Allyn. "In the Middle East, they want to do bookkeeping in Arabic. So we made a machine that works in Arabic, writes from right to left using 72 characters, variations on characters and figures. Now we have all the Mideast business in our pocket." To keep atop the foreign market, Allyn leaves his Dayton office for about 40,000 miles of round-the-world travel yearly, usually accompanied by N.C.R.'s President Richard Schantz Oelman, 49. Says Allyn: "If I did not travel, I'd probably say 'No' to every suggestion. It would have been easy to sit at home in Dayton and say we don't need bookkeeping machines in Arabic."