Check 21 Starts To Germinate

NEW YORK - (01/11/06) – SVPCO-Electronic ClearingServices, one of the leading electronic national check exchanges,said said traffic volume on its Image Payments Network has begun totake off, a year after enactment of the Check 21 electronicexchange law. SVPCO said it exchanged an average of 555,446 items aday in December, compared to just 18,000 last January. The peak ofDecember was on the 27th, when the exchange transmitted 929,409items. Daily average dollar value for December was $3.5 billion,compared to just $2.6 million last January. At the end of December10 banks were exchanging images over SVPCO, in addition tosignificant volume being exchanged through the Federal Reserve andEDS. “After the first full year of production, the ImagePayments network is gaining momentum as financial institutionsrecognize its enormous potential to reduce costs and increaseefficiency by settling images within a single, integrated systemthat is also connected to the Federal Reserve,” said GeorgeThomas, executive vice president of The Clearing House.