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Show Convenience planned by phone company "It's fun to pay the bills!" It would be hard to imagine even a Madison Avenue copywriter copy-writer coming up with this slogan slo-gan for a bank's ad. But in a couple of years, the idea may not be as far-fetched (or outrageous) out-rageous) as it now appears. For the housewife may then be paying the grocer, doctor and department store by pushing buttons on her Touch-Tone telephone and having a machine mach-ine in the bank automatically complete the transfer of money. mo-ney. This application was demonstrated demon-strated by the Bell System during dur-ing the national convention of the American Bankers Association Associa-tion in Miami. The exhibit also unveiled three other potential uses of Touch-Tone calling: ' A doctor's receptionist phones phon-es the bank's computer the doctor's account number, the patient's account number, the treatment given and amount to be billed. The bank prepares the bill and mails it to the patient's home. A store clerk phones a computer com-puter in the bank (or at another an-other location) to record each sale she makes. She transmits the customer's account number (if it's a credit sale), the price, merchandise code and her own number for billing and record purposes. She also can call the computer to check the customer's custo-mer's credit before the sale is completed. A bank teller phones the computer to check the current checking account balance for a customer, his credit status or - loan payment record. The com- puter selects and sends back a prerecorded answer. How soon will people be able to pay their household bills by phone ? Touch-Tone instruments instru-ments for this purpose are now available. But the beginning of( actual service depends on two main factors: whether the central cen-tral office in the community is modified for Touch-Tone call-J ing, and whether the bank converts to computer opera-( tions and decides to offer the service. Today a number of large banks are considering the idea. |