Headlines:
NCR Hires Nuti as Chief Executive Trustmark Hesitant to Exchange Images National City Using Credit-Checking Tool Wachovia Appoints an Operations Exec
NCR Hires Nuti as Chief Executive
The automated teller machine manufacturer NCR Corp. of Dayton, Ohio, said Monday that it had hired William Nuti to become its chief executive Aug. 8.
Mr. Nuti, 41, had been the president of Symbol Technologies Inc. of Holtsville, N.Y., a maker of bar-code scanners, since 2002 and its CEO since 2003. Earlier he worked for Cisco Systems Inc. for 10 years and for International Business Machines Corp., Network Equipment Technologies Inc., and Netrix Corp.
At NCR he will succeed Mark Hurd, who left to run Hewlett-Packard Co. this year. NCR's chairman, James Ringler, has served as interim CEO during the search for a successor.
In the two years that Mr. Hurd led NCR its shares quadrupled as he added software that retailers use to store sales, marketing, and finance records. NCR reported last week that second-quarter profit had increased 4.1%, mostly on sales of data storage software and a gain from taxes in past years. Revenue rose 1.2%, missing an April forecast for growth of 4%.
Mr. Hurd was named the head of Hewlett-Packard, the world's second-largest personal computer maker, on March 29, after a seven-week search to replace its departing CEO, Carly Fiorina.
Trustmark Hesitant to Exchange Images
Trustmark National Bank of Jackson, Miss., said it is quickly ramping up its image-capturing capabilities at its branches for processing checks at a central site but is more cautious about exchanging images with other banks.
Nicholas G. Anderson, a senior vice president and the bank operations manager at the main operating unit of the $8.2 billion-asset Trustmark Corp., said in an interview last week that check processing volume dropped 11% in the first half of the year, compared to the same period last year, as customers have switched to other payment forms, such as debit cards and online bill payment. As a result, per-item expenses are on the rise, Mr. Anderson said. "The biggest thing is the transportation cost."
Trustmark, which has 145 branches in Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas, is installing image-capturing software from Marshall & Ilsley Corp.'s VectorSGI. Mr. Anderson said he thinks the software will be ready to capture check images within 90 days.
"Our main strategy is to capture them there and not have to transport" the checks to Jackson, where Trustmark does all its check processing, he said. "We're going to save a good bit of money." (He would not put a dollar figure on the expected savings.)
Mr. Anderson also said he is less eager to start exchanging images with other banks. "There's still a lot of same-day settlement that we're doing with local banks," he said. About 30% to 40% of Trustmark's check volume is settled that way; only 9% of its checks are traveling such distances that image clearing would reduce the float from two days to one, he said.
In addition, the Federal Reserve Board is still testing its FedReceive service, which would let banks process incoming checks as image files.
The Fed is producing image replacement documents, and to participate in the service, Trustmark would have to pay for the IRDs, which would eat into the savings it could achieve from faster clearing, he said.
"You've got to wait and see what the network looks like as the volumes grow," he said. "You keep coming back to the transportation costs."
Trustmark expects to connect to the Fed for its high-dollar and long-distance items, Mr. Anderson said. "We're waiting for the network to grow a little bit. We don't want to be first."
Executives also are considering whether to link to the image-exchange service being introduced by Viewpointe Archive Services LLC of Charlotte, which has signed at least three southeastern banking companies already, or use a correspondent bank instead for image exchange.
Mr. Anderson said Trust-mark's main correspondent now is First Horizon National Corp. of Memphis, a Viewpointe customer that could give Trustmark access to the other big banks in Viewpointe's shared archive, as well as links to other image-exchange banks.
National City Using Credit-Checking Tool
National City Corp. of Cleveland hopes to boost its credit card business by letting qualified customers sign up for a card when they open a deposit account.
It has begun using an automated tool from the Chicago credit bureau TransUnion LLC that conducts a real-time credit check and gives employees an automated message if an applicant meets National City's card underwriting standards.
William J. Bostwick, a senior vice president in National City's bank card operations, said the tool lets branch employees tell customers that they are approved without asking them to fill out a card application.
"We are able to prescreen you and pre-approve you if you meet our underwriting criteria for a credit card product," Mr. Bostwick said in an interview last week. If a customer does not prequalify for a card, employees are trained to invite the customer to apply anyway, he said.
National City began pilot testing the tool in February at some branches and started offering it throughout its 1,200-branch network at the end of June. "It's very early, but we have seen some sales increases," he said.
The tool also lets employees pre-qualify customers for overdraft protection, Mr. Bostwick said.
National City hopes to boost card sales per branch by 2% to 40%. It has 1.6 million card accounts, including 1.1 million that are active, and $2.5 billion of card receivables, he said.
"We do not do mass solicitations via the mail," Mr. Bostwick said. "Our strategic niche is to sell to our customer base."
National City also is introducing the TransUnion tool in its call centers, he said. Two of the three centers are using it now; the third is scheduled to begin using it this month.
Wachovia Appoints an Operations Exec
Wachovia Corp. of Charlotte has named Gerald A. Enos to the newly created position of operations executive.
Mr. Enos will oversee a variety of operations, including security services, money handling, and transaction processing and clearing for retail and wholesale businesses, Wachovia said Monday.
He has been with Wachovia for more than 20 years, and was promoted from head of enterprise support services.
In that job, he oversaw noncredit loss management, physical security, and help desk services.
Previously, three units handled the tasks that have been consolidated under the operations executive position. Wachovia said the shift would improve efficiency.
