FleetBoston Financial has opened bank kiosks in three Bay State Staples stores in Auburn, Natick and Shrewsbury.

Office supply store Staples advertises the slogan, “Yeah, we’ve got that.” Now, in a few select Bay State stores, what Staples has on-site to offer small-business owners extends to banking services.

Attempting to emulate the customer-service-oriented legacy of BankBoston, its acquirer FleetBoston Financial is reaching out to smaller business clients through new kiosks in several Staples stores in the Northeast.

The move is part of a new effort by Fleet to reacquaint itself with its core customer base.

The first of the 150-square-foot kiosks opened July 10 in Auburn, Natick and Shrewsbury with more to follow in New Jersey and Pennsylvania in August. The kiosks are not full-service branches but rather are targeted toward the types of small-business customers that patronize Staples. A special co-branded small-business package will be offered at each Fleet Small Business Zone, as the kiosks are being dubbed, and each kiosk will be staffed with two salespeople.

At each zone customers will be able to open accounts and receive on-the-spot debit cards. Another feature of the partnership is that for all signature-based Fleet debit card purchases at Staples, customers will receive 1 percent back in coupons to be used at the office supply chain, up to $100 per month.

While numerous area banks have opened branches in grocery stores, the partnership of a bank and retail chain is new to the region. The chances of such a strategy succeeding locally is uncertain, according to bank analysts.

“It’s an interesting strategy. It’s a variation of the supermarket strategies. The difference is everybody has to eat, not everybody has to go to Staples,” said Matt Pieniazek, president of Darling Consulting Group in Newburyport. “Having access to small businesses that may be going there is a very interesting theory but the proof is in the pudding. It’s too early to tell what’s going to happen,” he said.

Fleet is using the kiosks as a new distribution channel to reach out to the smaller business owner, said David Fingerman, director of new ventures at the $192 billion-asset bank.

Although the idea originated with Staples, which is based in Framingham, it fit perfectly with Boston-based Fleet’s “renewed focus on growing our core business,” said Fingerman.

Deborah Hohler, spokeswoman for Staples, said that the company first introduced the concept six months ago with CIBC, a financial institution in Canada that so far has met with success placing kiosks in Staples stores north of the border. If the U.S. version of the plan proves successful, customers can expect to see more banking kiosks across the country in some of Staples’ 1,200 stores.

“We have been offering our small-business customers services for quite some time and we really look at different ways we can bring more convenience and value [to them] … Banking services are something that’s very important to small businesses,” said Hohler.

Fleet and Staples have been working on the plan for about nine months.

Through the agreement, Fleet rents the floor space it occupies in Staples stores. One problem anticipated by Pieniazek is that many small businesses order products online. According to Staples, because of the limited geographic distribution of Fleet branches, it cannot position the bank on its Web site. But James Schepker of Fleet said that the bank is going after the smallest of the small-business owners who do their own shopping at Staples stores.

‘Tremendous Potential’

Although the U.S. launch is quite new, Fingerman said there has been tremendous interest shown in the locations chosen by Fleet. No hard figures were available, however.

“The fact that Fleet is in a place where small businesses frequently shop and that we’ve got dedicated salespeople that really take the time and explore what the customer’s needs are and how we can meet those needs has been really well received,” said Fingerman.

It’s an “excellent example” of using offsite locations to promote banking products, said Julie Malveaux, spokeswoman for the American Bankers Association. “This is really interesting because it’s another area in the retail-based operation but it caters to small business … It’s a great example of going to the customer and serving them [in the ways that are] most convenient,” she said.

Fleet chose the store locations for its kiosks by overlaying Fleet’s locations with Staples and selecting areas where augmenting its market presence made sense. “We felt it was important that there were Fleet branches within a reasonable proximity of the store so that after the customer opens the relationship at Staples they have easy access to our branches,” said Fingerman.

Another factor in the decision of where to locate kiosks was the number of small businesses near Staples’ locations. “Obviously we wanted to have some density and be able to touch a lot of small businesses,” he said. Additionally, areas with a large potential for growth were selected.

The two salespeople working at each kiosk will be spending a great deal of their time managing the stores but they can also go to the customer’s place of business to discuss products and services and open accounts.

“One of the things we’ve learned is that sometimes customers are intrigued by the idea when they visit the Staples stores but they don’t always have the time to get into a detailed conversation,” said Fingerman. “A lot of what this is all about is convenience.”

Setting up the sales centers, as Fingerman refers to the kiosks, was much less difficult than establishing a full-service branch inside a retail outlet.

Some features of the Fleet/Staples small-business package include a business checking account that includes up to 200 free transactions per month, no cash handling fees and a low monthly fee that is waived with a minimum balance in a deposit account. The fee also would be waived for a month in which the customer performs all electronic transactions, said Fingerman.

Fingerman said Fleet officials view the early stages of the program as a real-world laboratory, and the bank may refine the concept based on customer feedback. “We’ve done a tremendous amount of research before we launched the program but we want to be flexible and nimble enough that as we learn from our customers. We’re working with Staples on how to best deliver value to the customer.”

“We believe this is a tremendous partnership that leverages both brands,” said Fingerman. “[Fleet] will be testing a number of innovative ideas and we believe this partnership has tremendous potential to develop a new distribution stream for small-business banking.”