In Brief: Calif. Thrift to Be Lender in Web Venture

Life Bank said it is in a venture with Prodigy Communications Corp. of White Plains, N.Y., and Recompute International Corp. of Austin, Tex., to be the lender in Prodigy's iLife program.

Buyers with approved credit can get the Prodigy Internet service preinstalled on the personal computers of their choice, with both the PC and two years of Internet service available for as little as $39.95 per month over 24 months.

Both new and remanufactured PCs can be ordered under this program, with Prodigy and Recompute marketing the products through multiple direct and on-line channels.

Prodigy iLife "is one of a series of programs recently launched by our new consumer finance division," said Daniel L. Perl, chairman and chief executive officer of Life Bank, a thrift owned by Life Financial Corp., which has $1.2 billion of managed loans.

"Prodigy iLife and similar programs are made possible by Life Bank's state-of-the-art application processing and decisioning system, which provides a flexible and expandable platform to efficiently originate consumer loan products," he said.