The bank's aggressive IT investments might seem to be in conflict with its reputation as a staunch conservative corporation. Upon closer analysis, though, the company's efforts towards modernity are in perfect tune with its retail strategies aimed at a multitude of clients. Currently, Bradesco has 9 million customers, and on any given day approximately 3 million people will visit its 2,200 branches and 800 sub-branches (small branches located inside large companies). Daily transactions average 66.9 million, but on a busy day they can peak at 124 million.

Bradesco's first step towards automation began in 1962, when the bank acquired an IBM 1401, and thus became Brazil's first private company to own a computer. Thirty-six years later, its technological base counts 55,000 microcomputers, 28,525 LANs, 7,239 servers, 7 mainframes -- totaling 68 processors -- and 3,775 MIPs to support its financial operations. In 1997 alone, Bradesco invested over $118 million in new information technologies. This year's investments will amount to $170 million.

This is no small accomplishment, considering the bank's humble beginning 55 years ago, and the challenges it has faced throughout its existence. This growth was all the more difficult because of Brazil's inconsistent economic policies and its long period of government-imposed market protection on computers, telecommunications and microelectronics. Due to prohibitive tariffs on imports -- some of them banned altogether -- the bank had no choice but to manufacture its own equipment. "We had to invent, manufacture, and make things work from scratch", recalls Dorival Bianchi, Bradesco's executive vice-president. In the years since the Brazilian market was opened up to imports, the bank has disposed of all its manufacturing units.

Ironically, the same economic policies which led Brazil into several years of hyperinflation, were also the motivating factor behind the automation fever in the country's banking industry. With the value of its currency deteriorating each day, Brazilian banks had to provide customers with speedy fund transfers. In order to achieve that, banks had to go to great lengths to equip themselves with appropriate tools. Furthermore, the nation's banks perform a series of government mandated tasks not handled by banks in most countries. These tasks include utility payments made by the general public; collection of federal and state taxes; and monthly payment of Social Security benefits to millions of retirees. So it is hardly surprising that the data processing needs of Brazilian banks are enormous.

However, despite numerous obstacles, Bradesco went on to create and implement a system that linked its operations on-line in real time in 1981. Bianchi, 56, thirty-seven of them with Bradesco, has vivid memories of that period. "We were the first Brazilian bank to launch a bank card, as well as the country's first debt and credit cards. So, we had to teach that new technology to our clients all over Brazil. It was a major challenge." To make matters worse, the state-owned telecommunications system was inefficient and monopolistic. Without enough phone lines to operate the network at its best, Bradesco spent three years struggling with Embratel, a government telecommunications company, in frustrated attempts to use one of the country's available satellites.

Eventually, the struggle paid off. In 1986, the Brazilian government launched an economic plan that drastically reduced interest rates. As a result, Bradesco suffered significant losses in the months following the plan's implementation, and had no choice but to downsize in order to cut expenses. But by then the network was running smoothly, which made the downsizing process easier to handle. With the bank's automation system already in place, it was possible to reduce the work force from 145,000 to its current staff of 62,000 employees.

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