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Who's who: Nandita Bakhshi

Though Nandita Bakhshi originally saw herself as a U.N. diplomat, she ended up running the ATM program for FleetBoston Financial. It's not as much of a stretch as it may sound; Bakhshi finds that diplomacy serves her well in relations with both colleagues and customers.

December 16, 2001

Nandita Bakhshi originally saw herself as a U.N. diplomat. An education steeped in political science and a master's degree in international relations had her poised to follow those aspirations. Instead, the Calcutta, India, native somehow wound up in banking. "I had no aspirations to come to the banking industry," Bakhshi said.

These ATMs have universal audio jacks, and the bank distributes headsets. Through the listening device, the customers receive private audio instructions for transactions usually displayed on the ATM screen – cash withdrawals, deposits, transfers and more. Fleet worked with Perkins School for the Blind, and Bakhshi got proactively involved with the people she and her team worked with. Jan Spitz, director of development and public relations for Perkins, said Bakhshi even brought a tour of potential volunteers through the school recently and is encouraging Fleet employees to volunteer as well. "We have lots of volunteer opportunities, so we're thrilled about that," Spitz said, but she and the staff and students at Perkins are even happier to have found such a friend. "I'm crazy about her," Spitz said when asked her impression of Bakhshi. "I think she's an outstanding individual. She's a person who is very committed to the community she lives in, a person who wants to make a difference. It's wonderful to work with someone in the corporate world who is that concerned about the world they live in."

Perhaps Bakhshi, who joined Fleet in 1998, has a future in diplomacy yet.

"I think with a degree in international relations, you really understand the aspects of an environment," she said. "You think, 'What is important to them? Where is this person coming from?' "My philosophy is that our main service is the customer. We're here because of our customers and the day we forget that, we will be in trouble. We make sure it's for the customer and not technology for the sake of technology." By year's end, some 150 talking ATMs will be in place, with the eventual goal of nearly 1,500 throughout Fleet's Northeast service area. About 50 percent of these should be introduced by 2003, said Bakhshi, who called the machines "a phenomenal success." "It really serves the need," Spitz added. Serving the need is not only Bakhshi's personal philosophy, but her business philosophy as well.

"I don't think we were really utilizing the (ATM) channel to service our customers," she said. "The ATM channel has a lot of fixed costs attached to it. Even if you don't do a single transaction, the bank has to carry the burden of the cost. It makes sense to add more functionality and to make the experience user-friendly and positive for the customer." For example, in 1998 about 9 percent of all Fleet's deposits went through ATMs. Today, that number is at 40 percent and climbing, thanks largely to the increased functionality of the bank's ATMs. "If you make a deposit at an ATM and it doesn't go through, you'll never do it again," Bakhshi said. So she directed a rebuild of Fleet's systems from the ground up. "For the last 18 months we have taken on a very aggressive path toward enhancing our ATMs," she said of the $47.1 million initiative. "The first couple of years (of her tenure), we really honed in on infrastructure. We've upgraded our ATMs to having very high memory and processing PCs with graphic screens and so forth. Once we achieved a level of competency, we focused on how to bring in enhancements and on how to serve customers better. We started with things like cleaning up receipts to give better current balances and so forth." Bakhshi said she enjoys the creative process, something that parallels her love for cooking. ("You take raw materials and build a good dish out of it, and you can serve it and people are happy," she explained.)

Also, there's a secret: Bakhshi has completed all but one class toward an MBA, which helped develop her business sense along with that creative side. These attributes, along with her diplomatic aspirations, have created quite an interesting combination. "I had no aspirations to come to the banking industry," she said. "I think my ability to think through issues and my analytical skills -- my ability to look at the big picture but still be able to focus in on small details -- are some of the competencies I'm able to use in this position." The next step: creating a Web-enabled ATM network so the bank can talk to – and listen to – customers at the point-of-sale. Fleet unveiled its new Web-based ATM technology earlier this month at the 91st Annual NRF Convention and Expo in New York. Bakhshi said it will roll out in a pilot stage in the first half of 2002. "If you look at most developments at banks, they're really happening on the Web platform," she said. "We need to be able to leverage that. We do more transactions than any other channel of the bank. This will be a way of converging both, not only the transaction but also giving out information.

"I'm not saying it will all happen next year, but it's absolutely the right trend for ATMs."