LEWISTON – Pardon Tina Currie if she seems a bit enthusiastic. A financial services associate for Five County Credit Union, she comes from an IT background.

And she loves what Five County has done to its newest branch at the corner of Ash and Park streets.

First there are the three TV-equipped, kiosk-style, self-banking stations. It’s hard for patrons entering from Park Street not to notice them: A glance nearly straight ahead and customers are looking at themselves as they face the TV cameras.

Closer up, the customer can tap a call button that puts a self-service, pneumatic tube at their fingertip. That same tap of the button sends their image into never-never land and brings up Currie’s face, or that of one of her co-workers, from somewhere behind a nearby security wall.

At that point the customer and teller can talk face-to-face via the magic of technology, or, for a bit more privacy, use a telephone situated next to the TV screen. By talking on the phone, folks using the other two similar banking stations can’t hear what’s being said.

Currie says customers can do virtually all of their banking through the TV and tube system: Deposits, withdrawals, loan payments, cash checks or whatever.

And it’s quick, she adds.

One teller can handle the three stations as well as two tube-fed drive up stations, moving customers along within three to five minutes. That’s sometimes less time than people spend standing in line just waiting to see the other teller handling customers behind the credit union’s counter.

“We do keep a teller at that station,” said Currie, pointing out that not every customer likes the idea of using the TV-equipped teller stations. Most do, though, she said. One 75-year-old customer called it “awesome” recently, Currie noted.

For really computer-savvy clients, Five County also offers two desktop computer stations – the credit union’s Cyberbranch – where people can do their banking online.

The service is available for people who might not have a computer at home, as well as for customers who find themselves in the city and in need of checking an account, making a transfer or paying a bill electronically.

For customers who prefer old-style communication with a live teller, the facility offers a steady CNN diet of news from a flat-screen television facing the teller line, or they can gaze at the historic Great Falls mural painted by Dean Cornwell that remains on the landmark building’s wall.

Branch manager Therese Samson-Blais said the mural and another showing some common activities in the homes of early settlers are bringing in people, even non-customers, who admire the artwork.

She also said that Five County’s membership is slowly growing, here with the facility now into its sixth week of business.

“We already had a good base, what with all of the BIW employees who live in the area,” Samson-Blais said. “We’re building on that.”