Your bank account is running low.

• Position: Alert! - Brief Article

One of your customers accidentally allows deposits in his checking account to fall below the threshold required for his service level. Naturally, your customer would appreciate being notified immediately about this situation so that he can rectify it--and avoid added fees.

In the past, you had to give the customer a telephone call, at an average cost of $2.77. But now, there is a way to notify your customer electronically at an average cost of only $0.25,

The alert can be dispatched by telephone, mobile text message, e-mail, fax or instant message.

Charter One in Cleveland (assets: $41 billion) is the first bank holding company in the nation to adopt this new alert service, called Corillian Alerts, which is provided by Corillian Corp. in Portland, Ore.

With the...