SQN in Rancocas, N.J., has introduced a new signature capture and verification system.
Called Autofeed II, it eliminates hand scanning, manual cropping, and the manual entry of account numbers. The system comes with a personal computer, a scanner, and a software package. It is aimed at institutions that typically process 200 or more signature cards a day.
SQN executives said that Autofeed II captures signatures five times faster than the industry standard.
They estimate that for larger banks using this product, the cost associated with signature capture is reduced by as much as a half.
Banks traditionally have customers sign signature cards, which are kept in a manual file. When a teller or operations clerk needs to check a signature, they go to the file and physically pull out the card, a time-consuming and paper-intensive process.
With Autofeed II, when customers open an account, they sign a card. At the end of the day, a clerk takes a batch of new account signature cards and electronically scans them into the system.
Protection Against Fraud
Autofeed II can be accessed in the back office as well as on the teller platform, providing banks with a means to protect themselves against fraud.
Besides reading signatures, the system also reads optical character recognition information and instructions. For example, if all checks over $10,000 in an account need a signature verification or if a check needs two signatures, the system will note these instructions.
The system collects this information by reading a set of boxes on the signature card. When opening a new account, a customer simply checks a box that specifies the instructions. SQN can create an instruction checklist according to a bank's needs.
