Headlines:
Open Solutions Buying Datawest
The core processing software maker Open Solutions Inc. is acquiring Datawest Solutions Inc., a technology outsourcer to Canadian credit unions, for $38.3 million in cash.
Datawest, of Vancouver, also manages Canada's largest network of automated teller machines.
Open Solutions, of Glastonbury, Conn., announced the deal last week and said it should close next quarter.
The company announced Aug. 18 that it had become an equity member of Open Technology Solutions LLC of Denver, a credit union service organization that uses Open Solutions' software to provide core processing to the $1.5 billion-asset Bellco Credit Union of Greenwood Village, Colo., and the $1.8 billion-asset Bethpage Federal Credit Union of Bethpage, N.Y. 
M&I, Clients Joining Endpoint
Marshall & Ilsley Corp. of Milwaukee announced Wednesday that it had joined the Endpoint Exchange check image exchange network, whose operator it bought this summer.
M&I said it was the fifth of the 50 banks with the most assets to join. M&I Support Services Corp., which provides outsourced support, will also join, thereby enrolling its 165 financial institution clients, the company said.
Endpoint Exchange has over 4,000 members, mostly small banks and credit unions, and began its first image settlements in late 2002. Metavante Corp., M&I's technology subsidiary, acquired the operator, CheckClear LLC of Oklahoma City, on July 1.
A rival network operated by the Small Value Payments Co./Electronic Clearing Services began processing image-based transactions last Friday between KeyCorp accounts and some that J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. got by buying Bank One Corp. The first items were settled Monday. SVPCo is a unit of The Clearing House Payments Co.
American of Pa. Using CheckFree
American Bank of Allentown, Pa., has switched its Internet bill-payment service to CheckFree Corp. of Atlanta to offer online presentment and improve fund availability for its customers.
Sandra Berg, a senior vice president and the senior operating officer of the $501.2 million-asset unit of American Bank Inc., said the new service went live last week on its Web site, pcbanker.com, after account information was transferred from the previous bill-payment provider, Princeton eCom Corp. of New Jersey.
A key reason for the change was "the way the customer was debited" by the Princeton eCom system, Ms. Berg said in an interview. Under that system, which was based on the "good funds" payment model, a customer's account would be debited on a Friday for a payment to be executed on the following Monday, she said.
Though CheckFree requires the same advance notice for a payment, it does not debit the account until the payment is executed, she said. "The customer has use of that float in the interim."
