Herald staff

MOUNTLAKE TERRACE — Officials of a company accused of securities fraud will respond to the allegations next week, an employee said Thursday.

YourBankOnline.com president Pakie Pastio is out of town on a previously scheduled trip, the employee said.

The federal Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday charged the company with fraud, alleging that the company released misleading information last year, which sent its stock soaring.

The company’s headquarters in a Mountlake Terrace office building was still open Thursday, although there were no signs to identify the office suite. It appeared that a sign listing the company as one of the building’s tenants had been removed.

The SEC said that in March 1999, the company, then known as Consolidated Data Inc., sent out press releases touting its acquisition of a $10 million computer software system that helps banks provide automated services over the Internet.

The news helped send the company’s stock, which is traded over the counter, from about $1 to as high as $32.

However, the company had only $138 in the bank at the time, and no way to pay for such an expensive program, the SEC claimed. Furthermore, the company that YourBankOnline.com allegedly bought the software from had itself only recently acquired it for just $400,000, the agency said.