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Survey: Few ARC Complaints to Banks Sterling of Wash. Using Treev System VectorSGI, Lockbox Firm in Software Pact
Survey: Few ARC Complaints to Banks
Few consumers are complaining to banks about the accounts receivable conversion process that turns their paper checks into automated clearing house payments, a survey found.
According to a survey released Monday by Nacha, the electronic payments association, just 4% of the consumers surveyed said they had called their banks with a question about converted checks in the past six months.
Also, 69% of consumers said they are familiar with the ARC process, and 55% have no objections or concerns regarding it, the survey said.
The margin of error was 4.9%.
The Herndon, Va., clearing house group has said that 1.25 billion consumer checks were turned into ACH payments last year, and that the figure should rise this year. Billers have eagerly embraced ARC, because it helps them handle payments faster. There has been concern that people would be confused when they see an ACH payment, instead of the check, on their monthly statement.
Elliot C. McEntee, Nacha's president and chief executive, called the percentage of people who said they are familiar with ARC "impressive," especially since the payment format "is less than 3 years old, and that there were concerns about customer acceptance when it was new."
The Response Center Inc., a Fort Washington, Pa., market research firm, conducted the telephone survey of 404 consumers from Oct. 28 (the day the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act took effect) to Nov. 7.
Sterling of Wash. Using Treev System
Sterling Savings Bank of Spokane is installing a document-management system that stores electronic records and digital images of paper files.
Cindy Parker, the senior vice president of information technology at the primary unit of Sterling Financial Corp., said it has deployed the system first in its accounts payable department and will deploy it next in its human resources department.
The system will provide "a common repository for documents that are now stored in paper form all over the bank," she said.
The $6.9 billion-asset parent company signed a licensing contract last quarter with Treev LLC of Herndon, Va., following a five-month review of four vendors.
"Many of our back-office operations are very document-intensive," she said. In accounts payable, for example, staff members typically handle an invoice 13 times from the time they receive it until it is paid and filed. "Right there you have a very inefficient process."
The accounts payable department has begun using the system, though she said it was premature to discuss results. Sterling plans to have the HR department running it by March. That installation is more complex, she said, because "there's a lot of workflow" to be automated in the employee review process.
Sterling plans to extend the system to its lending and deposit systems to store paper records such as loan applications and signature cards, as well as a growing inventory of electronic documents.
VectorSGI, Lockbox Firm in Software Pact
VectorSGI, a Addison, Tex., unit of the Milwaukee banking company Marshall & Ilsley Corp., has signed a contract to deliver check-image software to a large Canadian outsourcer of lockbox services.
VectorSGI would not identify the customer. However, a spokesman for the Brookfield, Wis., banking technology outsourcer Fiserv Inc. said Monday that Intria Items Inc., a joint venture between Fiserv and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, had recently signed a contract with VectorSGI.
On Monday, VectorSGI said the outsourcer would use its software to process incoming returns (checks that are sent back to the processor because of insufficient funds, closed accounts, or other reasons) and exceptions (items that require special handling, such as high-value items and unlocated accounts).
The software works with both paper checks and check images to facilitate settlement, VectorSGI said.
Canadian banks and payment processors are switching their check processing operations to image-based systems under the Canadian Payments Association's Truncation and Electronic Cheque Presentment project, which is similar to the one that produced the U.S. Check Clearing For the 21st Century Act. The trade group has targeted national implementation of the project by the end of next year.
