CheckFree: Hosting Exception Hassles

CheckFree, capitalizing on a knowledge base from more than 1,500 reconciliation system installations, is bundling that exceptions-handling and operational experience into a new hosted service that it unveiled to a securities and payments transfer audience at the SWIFT International Banking Operations Seminar (SIBOS) in Boston. The reconciliation and exception management service is for banks and securities firms that want to outsource the headache of supporting hardware systems and support staffs that track down e-payments transaction snafus. Institutions and companies on the service will log in to CheckFree’s Web-based service to track problems, and will get a hand from consultants with CheckFree, which is being acquired by Fiserv in a $4.4 billion deal, to fine-tune the reconciliation processes that lead to errors.  In a survey published this spring from research firm Aite Group, automated reconciliation was a major priority for large banks in their cash management improvement plans.