Headlines:
Mellon Tests Remote Deposit Program Bisys Buying Fund Business Servicer Fitch Makes $175M Deal for Algorithmics New Software for Monitoring Vendors CheckFree to Use Netonomy Product
Mellon Tests Remote Deposit Program
Mellon Financial Corp. has started a pilot test program that lets corporate customers make check deposits electronically.
The Pittsburgh financial company said Wednesday that its Mellon Global Cash Management unit is working with several institutional customers to test "remote capture" technology. The customers are using check scanners and software provided by Mellon to scan the checks they receive and to transmit check images to the unit.
Mellon said it expects initially to print the items as substitute checks for deposit on a same-day basis and for processing through the check clearing system, under the provisions of the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act.
Mellon said that it has begun the pilot test at its wholesale lockbox site in Pittsburgh. It expects to complete the test in the first quarter and introduce the service next year at its wholesale lockbox sites in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.
Bisys Buying Fund Business Servicer
The New York financial outsourcer Bisys Group Inc. is buying RK Consulting, a provider of investment fund administration services to the hedge fund and private equity industries.
The deal, announced Tuesday, is expected to close in several weeks. Bisys did not say how much it would pay.
RK is a unit of Rothstein Kass, a Roseland, N.J., accounting and consulting firm that focuses on alternative investments. Rothstein Kass cited regulatory concerns (similar to those that have raised by other accounting firms) in the decision to sell the unit.
"Due to increasing regulation in the accounting industry and to ensure our independence and objectivity, it was in the best interest of Rothstein Kass, its clients, and employees to divest the firm's interests in the fund administration business," said Steven A. Kass, a Rothstein Kass principal who would become a co-managing principal after the sale.
Bisys said that the acquisition would increase the assets under administration at its hedge fund and private equity businesses to over $180 billion.
Fitch Makes $175M Deal for Algorithmics
Fitch Inc. in New York is buying the risk management software provider Algorithmics Inc. for $175 million.
The deal, announced last week, is expected to close next month.
Fitch, a subsidiary of the Paris company Fimalac SA, said last week that the Toronto company's software would complement its own offerings.
Marc Ladreit de Lacharriere, Fimalac's founder and chief executive and Fitch's chairman, said in a press release that the deal "is the latest in a series of business and technology initiatives furthering our goal of creating world-class risk management products."
New Software for Monitoring Vendors
Greenwich Technology Partners in New York and Relational Security Corp. of North Bergen, N.J., have developed software to help financial companies monitor their technology vendors' protection of customer information.
The two companies announced the software's general availability this month, though executives said they have been offering it privately to their customers for several months.
Banks can either license the software or hire Greenwich to implement it and run periodic audits.
The software follows guidelines established by BITS, the technology arm of the Financial Services Roundtable, in its "IT Service Providers Expectations Matrix."
The BITS matrix, essentially an elaborate spreadsheet, describes 610 individual items within 10 security domains that financial companies should assess to ensure that their technology partners and outsourcers are complying with data-protection provisions of laws such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
Vivek Shivananda, Relational's president and chief executive, said in an interview last week that the software lets users audit for "several regulations within a single framework."
CheckFree to Use Netonomy Product
CheckFree Corp. has entered a reseller agreement under which it will incorporate online self-service software from Netonomy Inc. into its i-Series electronic billing suite.
Netonomy's software provides online account management and e-bill analysis, among other features. The company, which has headquarters in Boston and Paris, said its customers include the British mobile-phone companies Vodafone Group PLC and the Orange PCS unit of France Telecom Group.
