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Key Adds Corporate Account Report Tool Software Firm Offers ID Verification Tool Identrus Recruits from Banker Ranks
Key Adds Corporate Account Report Tool
KeyCorp of Cleveland said document management software from Hyland Software Inc. of Westlake, Ohio, is helping it improve account reconciliation for its corporate customers.
Last week KeyCorp said that it had integrated Hyland's OnBase software into its system, which already used ARP/SMS software for account reconciliation from CheckFree Corp. of Atlanta, and the Mobius ViewDirect TCM Repository check-image archive from Mobius Management Systems Inc. of Rye, N.Y.
Jim Criniti, the vice president of payment deposit services at KeyBank, said in an interview Friday that OnBase gives corporate customers more time to make positive-pay decisions on incoming checks that do not match their check-issue files.
The integrated system has let Key automate research and adjustments on check exceptions in its all-image disbursement operation, Mr. Criniti said. "We don't have to go to five different systems" to make corrections, as the company had to do previously.
The system was put into commercial operation in May, and KeyCorp began using it to generate management reports last month, he said.
Software Firm Offers ID Verification Tool
Network Merchants Inc., a Chicago payment processing software provider, is offering its customers an online credit card payment authentication system from StrikeForce Technologies Inc.
George Waller, a cofounder of StrikeForce and its executive vice president for marketing, said that Network Merchants, through its relationships with independent sales organizations, began to market his software this month "to all of their merchants and retailers - some 220,000 of them."
The StrikeForce system verifies someone's identity by looking at databases of personal information and then calling the customer to quiz them on details of past financial activities, such as the terms of an auto loan.
"There's multiple pieces needed to fulfill a successful transaction, and it starts at the verification piece," Mr. Waller said.
Consumers appreciate the added security, and merchants like the software because it can reduce chargebacks for online purchases, he said. By using the identity quiz, merchants "will be able to verify that the persons sitting at the keyboard really are who they say they are."
Identrus Recruits from Banker Ranks
The San Francisco identity technology company Identrus Inc. has filled some important positions with executives from Bank of America Corp. and ABN Amro Holding NV.
Mack Hicks, who was the senior vice president of corporate information security for B of A, has been hired as Identrus' new chief technology officer. John Traynor, who was in charge of cash management services for ABN Amro, has been hired as the executive vice president of sales and business development.
Identrus announced the hirings last week. It has also hired Curtis Jensen as its vice president of government sales. He was the director of government sales and strategy for Marriott International Inc.
John Sculley, the former chief executive of Apple Computer Inc., was named Identrus' chairman last month.
In July it announced that it had received $20 million of funding, half of which came from Rho Capital Partners Inc., where Mr. Sculley is a venture partner.
Mr. Traynor said that Identrus plans to use the funding to expand beyond its core financial services customer base into other corporate and governmental markets.
However, "the banks will always be our partners," he said. "We want them there.
"We've got a clear, renewed interest from our banking partners around the world," he said. "They look at us now, and we have stability."
