State Bank of Fenton, Mich., again putting its small-town spin on high- tech banking, is preparing to offer a computerized bulletin board for local residents and businesses.
The subsidiary of $210 million-asset Fentura Corp. plans to establish what officials call a "metropolitan area network," giving local merchants the ability to advertise and, eventually, sell goods and services over a network of personal computers.
The system could bring to Fenton (population 25,000) the type of electronic commerce that many larger banks and computer service providers are beginning to assemble - and in some cases struggling with - for their larger and supposedly more sophisticated audiences.
But for State Bank, electronic commerce is a natural extension of an innovative, technology-oriented strategy that aims to perpetuate community banking using media that many observers have assumed will mean the end of immediacy and intimacy in serving customers.
Built with a combination of wide-area and local-area networking technology, State Bank is staking out a subdivision of the open web of computer networks known as the Internet.
In keeping with community banking precepts, the goal is to provide "local commerce on a local level," said Carolyn M. Spicer, the bank's senior vice president for retail banking administration.
The bulletin board service should be ready for testing in April, she said. In addition to rudimentary commerce, it will offer games, local news, and a community calendar.
Access to the service will initially be free to Fenton residents.
Electronic commerce has become a hot button for many larger, technology- savvy banks. They are grappling with the issues of how to use the emerging networks and services and how many customers will actually use them.
But all the cyber-banking hype prompts the question of whether a small midwestern town is truly ready to rush headlong into the Information Age.
"We realize that some people say it's just for nerdlings," Ms. Spicer said. "But there's a lot of us out there."
Without any major announcement so far, Ms. Spicer said her project has attracted the interest and potential participation of at least 900 local consumers and several merchants. For the first stages of the bulletin board service, Ms. Spicer hopes to enlist 50 to 100 retailers and about 2,500 residents.
In the beginning, the bank will primarily monitor traffic patterns on the electronic bulletin board, refining the processes and getting a profile of the average user.
Although the early phase will not allow actual on-line purchasing, Ms. Spicer said State Bank is currently pursuing means by which to provide secure data transmission - most likely by partnering with one of the many software companies that provide such technology.
In the future, the bank will connect its local network to the Internet through gateway software, Ms. Spicer said.
State Bank already has grasped some basic differences between its service and the basic Internet. Bank officials decided against a "chat" option on the bulletin board, fearing it would become clogged with town gossip and politicized, according to Ms. Spicer.
