Microsoft has announced a three-year alliance with Bank One, the sixth-largest bank holding company and largest Visa card issuer in the United States, giving it a major advertiser for MSN and a new marketing channel for its bCentral and .NET Alerts services.

Bank One will participate in the MSN Advantage advertising program, gaining heavy promotion on MSN Money and other MSN properties. (See "New Ad Partner Program Launched" on page 18 of the Oct. 2001 Update.) Additionally, Microsoft Great Plains resellers will offer Bank One's commercial services, such as merchant banking accounts, providing the bank with a new sales channel into the elusive but lucrative mid-sized business market.

In exchange, Bank One will pay Microsoft an undisclosed sum, promote MSN Internet Access, and offer bCentral services through its Web site. Bank One will also use .NET Alerts to notify customers of relevant information—for example, messages about unusual account activity or reminders several days before a bill is due. This could increase Microsoft's audience for future fee-based services such as .NET Presence, which will help route alerts to the right user location.

The two companies will cooperate on future initiatives as well. Bank One might adopt some of Microsoft's new products for the financial services industry, such as MSN Money Professional and Money Explorer. (See "New Offerings Cater to Financial Services Companies".) Bank One could also play a role in Microsoft's plans to upgrade Passport to support smart card technology, which would make it suitable as an authentication system for sensitive functions such as online banking. As the nation's largest issuer of Visa cards, Bank One could give Microsoft a way to distribute some of the necessary technology—tiny microchips embedded on a plastic card—into the consumer market. (For background, see "Smart Cards Provide Stronger Log-On Security" on page 12 of the Dec. 2001 Update.)

Microsoft and Bank One have worked together before: in Oct. 2001, Bank One subsidiary First USA began offering an MSN-branded Visa card which included a free copy of Microsoft Money and six free months of MSN Internet Access; in Oct. 1998, First USA purchased US$90 million worth of advertising on MSN.