CANTON, N.C. — Eager to demonstrate its appeal to the youth market in North Carolina, the $110 million Champion Credit Union disclosed Monday it is part of a Jack Henry/Symitar beta testing program to offer cell phone banking to its members starting in January.

"Those big banks like Wachovia and Bank of America are doing lots of promoting that service and we thought it was time we could do the same and attract those Gen Yers," explained Jeremy Cook, marketing director, referring to the tech-savvy so-called "Generation Y." A spokeswoman for Jack Henry/Symitar at its Monett, Mo. headquarters confirmed that Champion is one of three U.S. CUs part of the beta program citing its own "goDough" product described as a "feature-rich mobile banking solution" formally debuted in November at a BAI tech conference. The Symitar spokeswoman declined to identify the other two CUs but said the vendor is planning a "full roll-out for credit unions in March" of the product and already has "five banks that have rolled it out with 22 signed for installation." Cook said he understood "the skepticism that exists about mobile banking" but the CU has now been assured problems of security and privacy have been addressed by the vendors.