Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 11, 1992                   TAG: 9203110057
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MAG POFF BUSINESS WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

COREAST GONE BUT CHECKS STILL GOOD

But even though the offices of CorEast are gone, checks of the savings bank will survive for a long time in the nation's banking system.

And First Virginia Bank Group, which took over deposits of 32,304 CorEast accounts, said it will process and honor checks written on accounts that remain active.

First Virginia Bank-Southwest took over CorEast's deposits in the Roanoke Valley Friday when Resolution Trust Corp. disposed of the institution's branches.

Central Fidelity, Virginia First, Bank of Rockbridge and other banks bought deposits in branches throughout Western Virginia.

James Hinson, president of First Virginia Bank-Southwest, said he's heard reports that some merchants have declined to accept CorEast checks.

In fact, he said, those checks are being processed and returned to the accounts held now by First Virginia and other acquiring banks.

Assuming sufficient funds are in the account, he said, checks drawn on CorEast will be honored as usual. The deposits went automatically to the purchasing bank, and so do the CorEast checks.

Customers who chose to switch their accounts to a different institution must use the checks of that bank, however.

Hinson said First Virginia will mail new checks to former CorEast customers in about two weeks.

But even then, he said, some people will continue to write CorEast checks from time to time. When they do, the checks will come back to the First Virginia account.

CorEast checks, Hinson said, "are as good as the account is."

Meanwhile, Signet Bank has lured some former CorEast customers with a promotion it said just happened to be coincidental.

Signet is offering new customers a year's free checking and free checks when they transfer accounts from another bank.

Signet, said spokeswoman Evelyn Snow, had planned the promotion for many months to attract accounts from all of its competitors and the timing "just happened."

But Snow said Signet's West Salem and Valley View branches, which are near former CorEast offices, already had attracted many CorEast customers.

Customers renting safe deposit boxes at former CorEast offices lined up this week to empty them and take the contents to other banks, a move Hinson said isn't really necessary.

In about two weeks, he said, First Virginia plans to move safe deposit boxes from CorEast branches it bought to the nearest First Virginia branch. Customers, he said, can either leave contents in the boxes during the move, or empty them.

Now-closed CorEast branches will be open from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays so customers can enter the safe deposit boxes.