More Companies to Offer Phone Banking Devices : Service: The action shows they’re moving away from emphasis on personal computers and feel the need to keep up with Citicorp.

Manufacturers Hanover Corp. and several other banks, following the lead of Citicorp, plan to introduce telephone banking services over the next year to give a jolt to their home-banking programs.

The move marks a definite shift away from personal computers for home banking, a service that many banks have dropped because of low profit margins. It also indicates that banks believe they must keep up with Citicorp, which announced in March that it had developed a modified telephone for consumers to bank from home.

Sources say Manufacturers Hanover has asked several equipment suppliers to submit proposals for a telephone device that would allow customers to pay bills, transfer funds, and conduct other routine banking business from home.

Unlike Citicorp’s initial offering, Manufacturers’ proposed device could also deliver advanced telephone services such as voice messaging and caller identification and stock quotations.

The Excel home banking program by Manufacturers Hanover is the fourth-largest in the country, with an estimated 7,200 customers in 1989. BankAmerica Corp., Citicorp, and Chase Manhattan Corp. hold the top three spots.

In contacting suppliers, Manufacturers said, it is acting as the lead bank for an informal consortium of a dozen banks that want to offer a telephone device but cannot afford to develop their own.

Most of the banks working with Manufacturers already offer home banking through the personal-computer-based videotex service known as Prodigy and use Manufacturers’ software and back-office processing for home-banking transactions.

Prodigy Services Inc., a joint venture of International Business Machines Corp. and Sears, Roebuck & Co., delivers information services such as home banking, reservations and shopping via personal computers. The service is available in 42 cities and has 425,000 subscribers, though only a small portion of those use it for banking from home.

Manufacturers does processing for CoreStates Financial Corp.’s Philadelphia National Bank, Comerica Bank-Detroit, First Interstate Bancorp’s First Interstate Bank of Denver, Wells Fargo Bank, and several banks in the MAC automated teller network.

Executives at these banks are reluctant to reveal their plans for a telephone home-banking device. “We don’t want to tip off our competition,” said a Wells Fargo executive.

Sources expect Manufacturers to offer the telephone device to banks as part of its home-banking processing service. The banks would then rent the phones to customers for a monthly fee.

“The banks that we’ve had discussions with feel that an enhanced telephone is the way to go,” said James Bauer, vice president of electronic banking at Manufacturers. “The interest is being driven by two factors. Banks want to position themselves because they feel threatened by Citibank. They also feel that the market is not right for PCs.”

Bauer acknowledged that Manufacturers is talking to equipment suppliers and other banks, but he declined to say which companies might make the device. He also said it was too early to say when such a device would be available or how it would be distributed.

Citicorp announced its Enhanced Telephone in March. The bank leases the telephone for a one-time fee of $49.95 plus $9.95 a month. The product is made by Philips International, a Dutch company.

A few hundred ETs are being tested with customers of two Manhattan branches of Citicorp. The ET can be used for home banking, making calls, storing phone numbers and automatic dialing.

“A dedicated stand-alone banking device won’t fly,” Bauer said. The device, he said, must marry features of a computer terminal to a telephone and be able to take advantage of advanced services, called class services, by the phone company. Class services include voice messaging, accessing electronic directories and caller identification, a feature that delivers the telephone number of the calling party when the phone rings.

Several companies have or are developing such devices. American Telephone & Telegraph Co. recently announced a new telephone that incorporates a small touch screen. Called SmartPhone, the device can be programmed to make and receive phone calls with the push of a button. AT&T; hopes to distribute the phone through regional telephone companies.

“Banking services is one of the primary applications of the phone,” said Michael Grisham, manager of strategic planning at AT&T; Network Systems.