EDS Is Offering Free Internet Sites To Financial Firms

setting up sites for them on the World Wide Web for free. The Plano, Tex., technology provider offered earlier this month to create basic Web sites for the first 3,000 financial institutions that responded. The offer is aimed at the mostly smaller banks and credit unions that have yet to set up shop in cyberspace. So far, the response has been slight - coming from only two community banks and five credit unions. But Craig Dees, an EDS spokesman, said the computer services giant was "not surprised or in any way displeased" with the reaction. Many financial institutions, he said, have inquired. The institutions that take advantage of the EDS proposal will claim a spot in the company's on-line financial industry directory, called Financial Net. Each will have a home page that can include up to 25 words of text, plus its address and telephone number. "The Internet stands to become an integral facet of how consumers will conduct their personal banking affairs in the future," said James Risser, the president of EDS' financial services division. "We are making this offer to ensure that financial institutions begin to get familiar with this dynamic new medium." Those that have accepted the EDS offer are: Bank of Canton of California; Exchange National Bank and Trust of Ardmore, Okla.; Marine Credit Union of Fond du Lac, Wis.; Communications Arts Credit Union of Detroit; Honoka'a Community Federal Credit Union in Hawaii; Tech Federal Credit Union of Crown Point, Ind.; and Blackhawk Credit Union of Janesville, Wis. Six other financial institutions are already working with EDS on other interactive projects and are established on Financial Net. They are Baxter Credit Union of Deerfield, Ill.; Pomona First Federal Savings and Loan of California; River Forest Bancorp of Chicago; Marine Heir Federal Credit Union of Santa Ana, Calif.; University of Northern California at Livermore Credit Union of California; and Greater Warren Community Credit Union of Warren, Ohio.

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