Big bank sounds like big brother.

• Position: NationsBank Corp

NationsBank Corp.'s new policy on cashing checks will cause some customers to give it the finger. The Charlotte-based bank is following crosstown rival First Union Corp. in thumbprinting check cashers who don't have accounts. The technology is simple - press a right thumb on an inkless pad, then below the check's signature line - but the implications aren't.

The state's other big banks say they've considered thumbprinting but won't for now, partly because there's no way not to offend customers. And, though NationsBank won't comment, some observers say the same concern delayed its May rollout in North Carolina.

"Thumbprinting poses some consumer dilemmas for banks," says William Jackson III, a former Federal Reserve Board consultant who teaches finance at UNC Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler Business School. "But the bottom line is, fraud is such a growing problem, they're going to do it, like it or not."

Bogus checks cost the industry $800 million nationwide in 1997 - 10 times more than it lost to robbers. Banks, reluctant to spend the dollar-plus it costs them to cash checks, aren't overly concerned about losing walk-in customers. "In five years, every big bank in the country will be doing something like this," predicts Tony...