A new fingerprint service from National Background Check Inc. targets community banks frustrated by Federal Bureau of Investigation delays.
The Columbus, Ohio, company will scan prints and submit them electronically to the American Bankers Association, which will forward the digitized images to the FBI. National Background Check announced the service Friday and said it was negotiating to sign up several banks.
Banks must run background checks on new employees, and fingerprinting has become one of commonest and most effective methods, though it is not mandatory.
Prints are typically sent on paper cards to the ABA, which charges $25 to process and transport them to the bureau. But the FBI is deluged with the cards and often takes up to two months to process them, said Eric Lapp, the vice president of sales and marketing at National Background Check.
When the cards are scanned and converted into electronic files, the FBI can run them through its database within days and usually get results back to banks within a week, he said.
National Background Check will charge $19.95 per card to digitize the image and submit it to the ABA. "We're taking a step out of the FBI's process," Mr. Lapp said. "Essentially, I'm selling speed."
Tom Judd, the ABA's associate director, said waiting two months for a background check can be a problem. More and more companies have started to submit prints digitally in the past year, he said, and he wants to see the industry adopt the technology on a broad scale.
Electronic transmission "is a pretty easy sell to banks," he said. "Our objective is to get them all automated."
Many smaller banks may be interested in National Background Check's services, he said. But larger banks, which can generate hundreds of fingerprint cards every week, have an easier solution: They are buying their own FBI-compliant scanners.
UMB Bank in Kansas City, Mo., paid about $30,000 for a fingerprint scanner last June, said Terra Null, its vice president for fraud investigation.
She said it can be very expensive to invest two months into training new employees only to fire them after the FBI check reveals something unacceptable.
UMB tends to get results in about six days from prints submitted electronically, Ms. Null said. "We feel we'll recoup our costs pretty quickly," she said.
