Trial program: customers use their cell phones for secure online banking.

• Position: New Products - Brief article

Selected customers at a community bank in Oregon are participating in a trial program that enables them to conduct online banking--transferring funds, paying fills and making point of sale transactions--from mobile handsets.

The financial institution is the Bank of Oswego (assets: $24.1 million; two locations), Lake Oswego, Ore. The service provider is Tyfone Inc. of Portland, Ore., a developer of applications that enable secure banking and payments on mobile handsets.

Participating customers are provided with secure banking cards to insert in their mobile handsets. These memory card clones enables the handsets to perform banking activities such as transferring funds.

Dan Heine, the bank's CEO, says the trial isn't just about technology, but rather it's about advancing customer service. "It enables the Bank of Oswego to offer customers a new level of convenience and service by integrating banking into their daily lives, through their mobile phone," he says.

Tyfone says its software links a bank's core systems with existing mobile communications infrastructure through multilayer security...