Is Your Bank a Dinosaur? Software CompanyPokes Fun at the Industry with

Home Financial Network Inc. is making a name for itself outside sales of its HomeATM line of banking and payment software.

The company has become a source of levity at industry conferences, breaking up the usual warnings about new competition and hand-wringing about home banking's prospects with humorous Top 10 lists in the style of David Letterman.

Eric T. Jacobsen, president and chief operating officer, did the honors most recently at a Faulkner & Gray home banking forum, his material drawn from some clearly frustrated comedy writers at the home office in Westport, Conn.

Here are the "Top 10 Hints Your Bank May Be a Dinosaur:"

10. When customers ask how to get on-line, you say, "At the rear, like everyone else."

9. To be more convenient to busy working families, you increase your hours to 3:30 on Wednesdays.

8. Casual Fridays mean female staff can remove white gloves.

7. Your chief technology officer has his degree in typewriter repair.

6. The difference between "public key" and "private key" is what gets you into the executive washroom.

5. Your entire annual marketing budget goes toward replacing the easel with the CD rates.

4. Your chairman is over 40.

3. When you see files marked MCIF, you put them back in alphabetical order.

2. Your board ordered three new servers-to bring the private dining room up to full staff.

1. Because Bill said so.