Headlines:
SVPCo Adds Two Check 21 Adjustments Web Use Up, Branch Use Down in Canada Metavante Renews Dial-Up ATM Pact Napoleon of Ind. Revs Up for FedForward
SVPCo Adds Two Check 21 Adjustments
Clearing House Payments Co.'s online check-clearing system has two new features for correcting errors in image-based clearing.
One feature expedites re-credits to banks' customers. The other settles breach-of-warranty/indemnity adjustments that can arise from mishandled checks. The two, provided by the company's SVPCo division, are required by the new Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act. Clearing House Payments Co. plans to announce them today.
They have been integrated into SVPCo Online Adjustments, a secure, Internet-based system that banks already use to resolve other kinds of check processing errors, said Jerry Milano, the senior vice president of SVPCo's check services operation.
"Adjustments are the most arcane portion of the payment system, and also the most expensive and the riskiest portion of the payments system," especially from the standpoint of internal fraud, Mr. Milano said Wednesday. The expedited re-credit issue has been particularly nettlesome for bankers because Federal Reserve rules require banks to resolve disputes on substitute checks faster than the Uniform Commercial Code of state laws requires.
Mr. Milano said few banks will use the new features until image-exchange volume becomes significant, as it may early next year. "The important thing is to have the infrastructure in place," he said.
Web Use Up, Branch Use Down in Canada
Bank of Montreal said a study it commissioned found that use of online banking is increasing and branch visits are decreasing in major Canadian cities.
Forty-two percent of residents in five of the country's largest cities bank online, against 32% in 2002 and 18% in 2000, according to the study, by Decima Research Inc.
Fifty-two percent visited a bank branch at least once in November, against 72% in November 2002 and 75% in 2000.
By comparison, Forrester Research Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., said in a report published in September that 38% of U.S. residents (not just those in large cities) were banking online, versus 29% in 2002.
Maria Racanelli, a vice president with Bank of Montreal, said in a press release that the increase in online banking reflects the hectic pace of city life. "Canadians are working longer hours and commuting farther to work each day, so they are definitely looking to find more convenient ways of conducting their banking," she said.
Decima surveyed 1,035 residents of Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, and Montreal. Bank of Montreal announced the findings Tuesday. Both companies are based in Toronto.
Metavante Renews Dial-Up ATM Pact
Metavante Corp. has renewed Transaction Network Services Inc.'s contract as the primary provider of networking services for its dial-up automated teller machines - mostly at convenience stores and similar locations - in the United States.
In fact the service does not involve dialing into an ATM host for each transaction, said the vendor, a unit of TNS Inc. of Reston, Va. The machines are connected through an "always-on" private network.
The new contract, announced Tuesday, includes ATMs in the NYCE Corp. network. Metavante, a unit of the Milwaukee banking company Marshall & Ilsley Corp., bought the Montvale, N.J., network operator in July.
Napoleon of Ind. Revs Up for FedForward
Napoleon State Bank of Napoleon, Ind., is using check imaging and archiving software from Financialware Inc. of Indianapolis in preparation for using the Federal Reserve banks' FedForward image transmission service.
FedForward sends check images and prints paper replacement documents at the destination. The Fed made it available Oct. 28, the day the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act took effect.
Napoleon is evaluating the service and will probably start using it around midyear, said David Gilbert, a channel sales manager with Financialware, in an interview. "They're prepared for it," he said. "They're just not doing it yet."
The bank chose Financialware's Active:Check and Active:View software because it was "core-vendor independent yet would readily integrate with our legacy system," said Les Kessens, the bank's president, in the vendor's mid-November press release.
Mr. Gilbert said the software works with any archive system. "We can be the middleware," he said.
