NBD getting Banctec's check-repair module.

Banctec Inc. has added NBD Bancorp to the list of clients using its Imagefirst OSA financial document processing systems.

The Detroit-based banking company will install the system's rejected-check repair module at its Belleville, Michigan-based operations center. The NBD deal marks Banctec's third installation of the product.

Installation at NBD should be completed by spring.

"Our hope is that [the system] will improve staff efficiency and improve the timeliness and accuracy of our statements," said NBD spokesperson Renee Ahee.

Charles Costanza, vice president of check processing systems with Dallas-based Banctec added that NBD "plans to add additional applications onto the system once they get the system completed and running."

Though many observers feel bankers' adoption of check imaging technologies has been conservative so far, many institutions are now easing toward the paper-reducing benefits of the technology by installing microapplications.

David Medeiros, a technology analyst with the Tower Group, a consulting firm in Wellesley, Mass., speculated the bank was applying image technology to reject repair first "because it's an area that can be isolated."

"The bank can test the technology there first without disrupting the other parts of the operation before extending it to transaction balancing or power encoding," he said.

NBD's reject repair system will allow the bank to process checks that its regular equipment had mangled and could not read.

The bank handles approximately 30,000 damaged checks on an average day. Information from rejected checks will be scanned into the system.

Banctec's system captures approximately 52% of the data on the first pass without any human intervention.

Remaining checks then go into Imagefirst's file server, where checks can be repaired on PC-based workstations and reentered.

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