Viewpointe Archive Services LLC has linked its shared check-image archive with Metavante Corp's image exchange, Endpoint Exchange Network, and Bank of America Corp. is already transmitting image files to Endpoint customers.
The agreement, which the companies plan to announce today, will probably boost image exchange, as it connects some of the nation's largest banking companies - B of A is the nation's largest check processing bank - with the 5,000 small and midsize ones that have signed up to use Endpoint.
John Feldman, B of A's image transaction and payments executive, said the Charlotte company began transmitting images Friday from the Viewpointe archive to two small banks connected to Endpoint.
"This is a signal showing that we are penetrating deeper to create an interoperable environment for the industry," Mr. Feldman said.
B of A sent only a few hundred images Friday, but "we're going to start ramping up some significant volumes by the first of the year," he said.
Paul T. Danola, the president and chief operating officer of Metavante Financial Solutions Group, said Friday's exchange was made possible by two things: Endpoint's decision to adopt the Electronic Check Clearing House Organization's rules for image exchange, and Endpoint's open-technology approach to accepting different formats.
Metavante is the technology subsidiary of the Milwaukee banking company Marshall & Ilsley Corp.
Jeff Vetterick, the general manager of Endpoint Exchange, said Mr. Feldman initiated the effort to connect the systems by encouraging Mr. Vetterick to reach out to Viewpointe, the Charlotte archive company whose 11 customers warehouse more than half the nation's checks in its systems.
Mr. Vetterick said the first B of A transmissions went to two longtime Endpoint users: BancFirst Corp. of Oklahoma City and Sterling Financial Corp. of Spokane.
B of A alone could send 2 million to 3 million images a day - or more than 50 million a month - to the banks that have signed up to use Endpoint, Mr. Vetterick said.
The number of images exchanged could swell further as other Viewpointe banks start using the Endpoint connection, he said. "All that volume is waiting there to reach the Endpoint members. It's just a matter of working out the business issues."
In September, Endpoint cleared about 8 million checks for the 3,500 banks that are using the network.
Kade G. Peterson, a senior vice president at the $6.7 billion-asset Sterling, said it received its first 100 images Friday from B of A. "They are all large-dollar items, they all look great, and everything is going fabulously."
Sterling, which has 140 branches in four northwestern states, has been using Endpoint commercially since December 2003. Mr. Peterson said that even though Endpoint has been known as an exchange for small banks, "we have known for a long time it had the capabilities to do things in a big way."
Lou Buglioli, Viewpointe's chief executive officer, said in a press release, "The connection with Endpoint enables our members to further optimize their existing Viewpointe relationship by expanding the number of financial institutions with which they can exchange."
Robert Hunt, a senior analyst at TowerGroup, a Needham, Mass., market research unit of MasterCard International, applauded the agreement.
"Here we have the two ends of the spectrum - a small collection of very large banks with tremendous volumes, and a huge number of small banks. It makes perfect sense that they would do this exchange," Mr. Hunt said. "In my mind, this is a big, big achievement, not only for these companies, but also for check image exchange."
