Headlines:
U.S. Bancorp Issues 82 Codes to Client Clearing House Image Volume Surges First Data to Process for Romanian Firm A German Bank Buying NCR Machines
U.S. Bancorp Issues 82 Codes to Client
U.S. Bancorp says it has issued 82 Universal Payment Identification Codes to a single corporate customer.
The issuance, announced Monday, demonstrates the growing demand for the anti-fraud method.
Nadia L. Kozak, a vice president and the payments team leader at U.S. Bank Treasury Management Services, said in an interview that the Minneapolis company has issued 89 UPICs to date, though only a handful of corporate customers are using them. She would not name the customer that received 82 of them, though she said it has several hundred demand accounts at U.S. Bank.
The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC of New York, which introduced the UPIC format in 2002, said that its customer banks have issued 123 of them, including 32 last year, and that before Monday, no bank had ever issued more than three in a year.
UPICs, developed by The Clearing House’s Electronic Payments Network, look like a conventional bank account number but can be used only to receive automated clearing house payments. A company’s customers send the UPIC with their payments, and the bank puts the money into the company’s account.
Because the codes cannot be used to debit an account or to forge a check, companies can print them on invoices, display them on the Internet, or publish them elsewhere.
Clearing House Image Volume Surges
Check image volume on The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC’s SVPCO Image Payments Network grew 47% last month from January, to a daily average of 1.02 million items, and the growth shows no sign of slowing.
The New York company said Tuesday that daily volume hit a peak of 1.9 million on Tuesday, Feb. 21, the day after the Presidents Day weekend.
One factor contributing to the growth: The Federal Reserve Bond began transmitting images over the SVPCO network last month. However, the Fed’s volume remains small, because National City Corp. of Cleveland is the only banking company receiving image files from the Fed.
“We don’t see any reason why that [growth] shouldn’t continue,” said Susan Long, a senior vice president at The Clearing House and the head of SVPCO Electronic Clearing Services. “Banks are getting more of their back office up to speed and are open to more exchanges.”
Ms. Long said several banks are preparing to receive files from the Fed. “This is what we’ve been waiting for.”
Ms. Long predicted that first-quarter image-exchange volume would match SVPCO’s total for all of last year.
First Data to Process for Romanian Firm
First Data Corp. gained a Romanian customer and renewed a deal with a U.S. one.
The Denver payment processor said Tuesday that it will provide MasterCard processing services to the Bucharest credit card marketer Credisson International. Cetelem Group, the consumer credit division of BNP Paribas, bought Credisson in May.
First Data will provide card production, personalization, authorization, and processing services for Credisson, as well as call center services, risk monitoring, dispute management, and point of sale terminal account handling.
Also Tuesday, First Data said it had signed a multiyear renewal of its contract with the $22 billion-asset Associated Banc-Corp of Green Bay, Wis.
First Data provides processing and other services for Associated’s general-purpose business credit cards, as well as cards connected to the banking company’s home equity line of business. Associated has been a First Data customer for 25 years.
A German Bank Buying NCR Machines
Kreissparkasse Bank of Germany agreed to buy cash-recycling automated teller machines from NCR Corp.
The Dayton, Ohio, ATM company said Tuesday that Kreissparkasse plans to install its Personas M Series machines at its main branch in Koethen this month, and will deploy them in other branches as it replaces older machines from other vendors.
NCR also agreed to provide ATM maintenance and servicing for three years.
It said cash-recycling machines have become popular outside the United States. The notes deposited by one customer are given to others who make withdrawals.
