Provident Goes For The Gold

Provident Bank, a regional bank serving the Baltimore-Washington corridor, will soon expand its Internet banking services to provide wireless access using technology developed in partnership with Gold Systems.

The new, menu-driven service is based on Vonetix, a Gold Systems product that extends customer communication through wireless Web access, speech recognition and interactive voice response (IVR).

Provident, which began working with Boulder, Colo.-based Gold Systems last year, is testing the new service with its own employees and plans to offer it to customers this summer. Provident has been pleased with the service provided by Gold Systems, with which it's worked closely.

The service will enable Provident customers with wireless Web access to view checking and savings account balances, CDs, money market accounts, loans and lines of credit, check transaction histories, transfer funds between accounts, receive credit advances, and make loan payments.