Headlines:
Clearing House Using Troy ACH Software Harland Acquires Financialware of Ind. HSBC Unit Sending Images via SVPCO A Russian Bank Buys NCR Machines
Clearing House Using Troy ACH Software
The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC is using software from an outside vendor to start originating automated clearing house transactions through its Electronic Payments Network.
The New York payment company said Wednesday that it had started using the software module, ACHOrigination, from Troy Group Inc., of Santa Ana, Calif. The software was customized to work with EPN's suite of ACH processing software, PCAims, which 400 community banks and credit unions have installed to connect to EPN.
Rossana Salaris, a senior vice president at The Clearing House, said it did not want to develop the software on its own. "We've always been asked to do it, and we felt it would round out our set of offerings, but there are so many different packages out there. It's not a business we want to be in."
The Clearing House decided to offer ACH originations in part as a response to the Federal Reserve Board's announcement in July that it planned to shut down its DOS-based FedLine product, which 8,000 institutions use to process ACH payments, by September of this year, she said.
The Fed also said it would raise the price of using the product in April to encourage institutions to start using an Internet version, called FedLine Advantage, which was introduced in November 2004. The DOS system has been in use since the 1980s, but many small banks have said they see no reason to switch to FedLine Advantage.
Ms. Salaris said The Clearing House, which is owned by 21 large banking companies, hoped to persuade institutions to switch to EPN, rather than converting to the Fed's Internet system.
"It gives us a little bit of an advantage with a full-fledged package, especially with the smaller institutions," she said.
Lee Martin, Troy's vice president of sales and marketing, said his company also is working with EPN on an Internet version of the origination software, which is expected by yearend.
A Fed spokesman would not discuss The Clearing House's announcement.
Harland Acquires Financialware of Ind.
Harland Financial Solutions Inc. has acquired the Carmel, Ind., imaging software vendor Financialware Inc.
The deal closed Tuesday. Harland, a unit of the Atlanta check printer John H. Harland Co., announced it Wednesday but did not disclose the price.
Raj Shivdasani, the president of Harland Financial's core systems group, said Financialware enables banks to store check images, along with image statements and other digital documents in a single repository, rather than in separate archives. "This fills a big void for us," he said.
Financialware's Active:View software suite uses proprietary pattern-matching technology to automate report and document imaging, archiving, cross-referencing, and retrieval.
HSBC Unit Sending Images via SVPCO
The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC of New York said Thursday that HSBC Bank U.S.A. has started sending check images through its SVPCO Image Payments Network.
The Prospect Heights, Ill., unit of HSBC Holdings PLC is the 12th banking company to exchange and settle images across the SVPCO system. The Federal Reserve banks also do so, and Electronic Data Systems Corp. receives images from SVPCO and prints them out as image replacement documents to be delivered to paying banks.
SVPCO said its December image volume rose 33% from November, to a record 11.7 million items worth $73 billion.
"The more institutions that join the Image Payments Network, the greater the benefits to all," Susan Long, a Clearing House senior vice president, said in a press release.
A Russian Bank Buys NCR Machines
OJSC Bank Petrocommerce of Moscow has bought 250 automated teller machines from Diebold Inc., of North Canton, Ohio.
The deal, which Diebold announced Wednesday, also includes its Agilis software, which lets banks support ATMs from multiple vendors.
OSJC purchased three models from Diebold's flagship Opteva line: lobby cash dispensers, through-the-wall cash dispensers, and a more advanced lobby model. Fifty of the units will be able to accept cash in bulk without a deposit envelope, and all of the units can handle Russian rubles, euros, and U.S. dollars.
In the past 18 months OSJC has purchased another 200 Opteva machines .
