There's a natural friction, bias, tension. It's a real issue. The dilution these companies are forced to take is untenable. Speaking of Lycos, you've increased your focus on what used to be called a search engine, now a portal, with the recent AltaVista deal. As customers conduct e-commerce, that bank can be front and center, making sure it's their credit card people use when they conduct commerce over their online service.
Banking is a natural niche.
The most important component of a successful e-commerce site is customer service. If you're servicing millions of people, you're just not going to be able to have a human being on the phone with everybody within three minutes. The next best thing is to make it so customers can easily get an answer themselves. In the early stages of these Web sites, the ones that get biggest the fastest are the ones that put customer service front and center. For instance, Amazon tracks you at your site once you've been there.