Headlines:
Key to Use Apptera's Voice ATM Locator EarthLink Will Add Digital Envoy System US Dataworks Says Its Loss Shrank US Billing Licenses a Carreker System
Key to Use Apptera's Voice ATM Locator
KeyCorp of Cleveland is using a voice-recognition product from Apptera Inc. that helps customers find a nearby automated teller machine over the phone.
Apptera, of San Bruno, Calif., announced the deal Monday. Its ATM Locator software enables customers to provide a street address or intersection, or just a telephone number. People can also search for ATMs in a larger area by using a ZIP code.
Apptera says Locator can recognize spoken addresses and street names in more than 30,000 cities nationwide, and that Bank of America Corp. has been using it for more than a year.
Rod Wiggins, KeyCorp's assistant vice president for call center services, said in Apptera's press release that the product will "streamline and automate routine customer requests." Installing it took only a few weeks, he said.
EarthLink Will Add Digital Envoy System
The Internet service provider EarthLink Inc. of Atlanta has agreed to use anti-phishing software from Digital Envoy Inc., of Norcross, Ga.
Digital Envoy said Tuesday that its E-Scam software would be added to EarthLink's ScamBlocker toolbar, which prevents users from visiting fake Web sites. Phishing sites impersonate those of banks and other businesses to trick customers into revealing personal information that can be used for identity theft.
Digital Envoy's software analyzes computers' Internet Protocol addresses - a unique string of numbers that identifies every computer using the Internet - to determine the location of those hosting Web sites. The digits in a computer's IP address, like those in a phone number, provide clues to its location. Since many phishing scams originate from certain foreign countries, this approach can be used to spot impostor bank Web sites.
EarthLink's toolbar already incorporates anti-fraud software from eBay Inc. of San Jose and its PayPal Inc. unit and from Cyota Inc. of New York, which uses information from a Digital Envoy rival, Quova Inc. of Mountain View, Calif.
Matt Cobb, EarthLink's vice president of core applications, said in Digital Envoy's press release that E-Scam "further enhances ScamBlocker's ability to quickly analyze fraudulent phisher sites and alert consumers before they make a mistake."
US Dataworks Says Its Loss Shrank
The Houston payment technology vendor US Dataworks Inc. announced Tuesday that strong sales of its Clearingworks software led to higher revenue and a lower net loss in the quarter that ended June 30.
Revenue of $1.1 million in the quarter, the first of its fiscal year, was 20% higher than a year earlier. Its net loss dropped 31%, to $968,800, or from 5 cents to 3 cents a share.
The company expects revenue in the current quarter to come in between $1.5 million and $1.6 million, leading to a net loss of 1 to 2 cents a share. For the fiscal year, it expects revenue of $4.8 million to $5.3 million and a net loss of 10 to 12 cents a share.
Charles E. Ramey, its chief executive, said in a press release that sales of Clearingworks, which processes automated clearing house payments and digital check images, have been strong. He noted that the software has now been used to process more than 1 billion payments.
"Our Clearingworks product suite is being embraced, embedded, and standardized into the fabric of some of the world's name brand financial institutions," Mr. Ramey said.
US Billing Licenses a Carreker System
US Billing Inc. a Milwaukee third-party processor for nonprofit groups and other organizations, has licensed Carreker Corp.'s NeXGen Remittance payments processing system to streamline operations by automating remittance processes.
Carreker, of Dallas, announced the licensing deal last week.
John Bernhoft, the president of US Billing, said in Carreker's press release that the system will help it settle payments faster by letting his company convert paper checks to automated clearing house transactions.
The system is flexible enough to automate a complex manual process, he said; US Billing can endorse each of its customers' checks with the routing number of the bank at which they are to be deposited.
US Billing says it mails millions of statements and provides lockbox services on behalf of several hundred customers.
