Headlines:
ACH to Process for a Toll Agency in Calif.
The payment processing vendor ACH Direct Inc. will offer automated clearing house transaction to motorists who use some of southern California's toll roads.
The Cathedral City, Calif., company already provides ACH processing for fines and toll violations to the Transportation Corridor Agencies, a public agency that oversees 67 miles of toll roadways in Orange County.
On Tuesday, ACH Direct said it will begin using the system to allow people to pay for their FasTrak wireless payment transponders.
ACH Direct will convert all paper checks received by the agency - for fines, tolls, or other transactions - and will automatically debit customer bank accounts to pay their regular toll charges, which are linked to the FasTrak units.
Motorists can also have their FasTrak accounts connected to a credit card, and "the majority" of them do, according to Clare Climaco, a spokeswoman for TCA, of Irvine.
It has offered automatic ACH debiting of customer bank accounts since FasTrak was introduced several years ago, and TCA has switched vendors, to ACH Direct, to consolidate its ACH payments, she said.
Jeff Thorness, the chief executive of ACH Direct, said that because ACH processing is much cheaper for the agency, he expects it to come up with incentives for consumers to link FasTrak accounts to bank accounts rather than to credit cards. Such incentives could include discounts on tolls or a contest to win free road usage.
Persuading customers to use ACH transactions over credit cards "has no downside," he said. In fact, "this will provide substantial savings to TCA."
ACH Direct is in negotiations to provide similar services to a major transit agency in Illinois, Mr. Thorness said.
CFO of Digital Insight Plans to Step Down
Digital Insight Corp.'s chief financial officer is resigning to pursue other career opportunities.
Elizabeth Murray will remain with the online banking services outsourcer until it hires her successor.
The Calabasas, Calif., company said Tuesday that it has hired an executive recruitment firm to find a successor, but it is not considering any candidates.
Jeff Stiefler, Digital Insight's chairman, president, and chief executive, said in a press release that in her two years with the company, Ms. Murray "has transformed an entrepreneurial finance organization typical of emerging growth companies into a team with extraordinary discipline, process controls and professional management."
Before joining Digital Insight, Ms. Murray was the chief financial officer at Korn/Ferry International, a Los Angeles executive recruitment firm, where she oversaw 14 acquisitions and the company's initial public offering. Before that she was also the chief financial officer at Hughes Communications Inc., now DirecTV Group Inc. of El Segundo.
She has over 20 years of financial experience, Digital Insight said.
