Metavante Acquires New Check Exchange
MILWAUKEE-Metavante said it has agreed to acquire Advanced Financial Solutions (AFS), the parent of CheckClear LLC, which owns and operates the check imaging network Endpoint Exchange. Endpoint Exchange has been building a nationwide exchange for check clearing and has signed on more than 5,000 financial institutions and a dozen major vendors to the fledgling network. The deal is the second in two weeks for Metevante, which also agreed to acquire the Kirchman Corp., a provider of software and services to the banking industry based in Orlando, Fla. Metavante will pay $305 million for the two acquisitions.
Jury Tries Again To Reach Verdict On Navy Hero
ST. PAUL, Minn.-A federal jury was unable to reach a verdict in its second day of deliberations in the case of decorated Navy veteran Mark Samples, who robbed Red Wing CU in May 2001. Jurors asked the judge to see some of the evidence a second time, but the main issue being deliberated-Samples' sanity during the commando-style raid on the credit union--remained unresolved.
Samples claims that post traumatic stress disorder caused by his experience during an Iraqi missile attack aboard the battleship Stark in 1987 sent him on a long spiral into depression that prompted him to stage the credit union robbery. But federal prosecutors insist that Samples only faked his mental illness after he realized his crime would send him to jail for at least five years. Samples has already pleaded guilty to charges of failing to appear for trial after he kidnapped his infant son during a weekend visitation and disappeared for 15 months, only to resurface in the woods near his home of West Virginia.
