BANKING / FINANCE

Home Federal Savings & Loan has put a lot of trust in its electronic “personal banking” machines, the latest of which has been installed in a new office near UC Irvine to serve students, teachers and others in the area.

The machine can handle just about all routine teller functions, including cashing checks to the penny.

That means the new office, in the Irvine Marketplace shopping center, needs just four employees to staff it. Those employees can only open new accounts and process loan applications, said Julie West, a spokeswoman for the S&L.;

There is a hitch, though, on the check-cashing system. Home Federal’s machines take payroll checks only issued by companies for which their customers work. But the machines cash checks up to $1,000, more than twice the $400 that customers can get from the S&L;’s automated teller machines outside.