Bank technology

Eastman Kodak Co. is entering a business where it says banking companies have been slow to fill customer demand: corporate check-image capture.

NetBank Inc. has priced a private placement of 6.5 million shares of its common stock.

Shares of Fiserv Inc. dropped slightly Wednesday morning after Peter J. Heckmann, an A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. analyst, downgraded the Brookfield, Wis., banking technology vendor's stock.

Consumers are increasingly concerned about online banking security, and many are willing to vote with their feet, according to a recent survey by Unisys Corp.

Within the next year plans call for more banks to start letting their customers chart their spending online, make last-minute bill payments from a credit card, check their balances from a cell phone screen, and program automated teller machines remotely.

The table lists daily composite stock prices at 4 PM (unless otherwise noted) as measured by market capitalization.

By connecting larger banks to its Endpoint Exchange Network, Metavante Corp. is making the check-image network more useful to the small banks that are its core users, an analyst said Thursday.

Metavante Corp. said Wednesday that 12 of the nation's 25 largest banks began transmitting check images over its Endpoint Exchange Network this year.

Wholesale bankers are developing new growth strategies for cash management services, and are anticipating extending what now look to be two solid years of growth into 2007. But bankers and observers continue to counsel caution, citing continuing upheaval in the payments space and uncertainty about interest rates, among other things.

CLS UK Intermediate Holdings Ltd. said last week that its U.S. banking unit, CLS Bank International of New York, set a volume record on Dec. 20, settling 529,318 payment instructions worth $6.62 trillion, using continuous linked settlement of foreign exchange.

Facing a firm yearend deadline to implement stronger security for online transactions, many banks have developed very similar strategies.

DealerTrack Holdings Inc. announced that 300 lenders are participating in its online auto lending marketplace.

Obopay Inc. has stepped up its efforts to encourage adoption of its nascent mobile phone payment service.

Open Solutions Inc. has announced plans to retire most of its outstanding debt in conjunction with the private-equity deal it unveiled in October.

The online banking outsourcer Digital Insight Corp. announced last week that it would offer its financial-institution clients a fraud-monitoring tool from Entrust Inc. of Dallas.

Goldleaf Financial Solutions Inc. of Brentwood, Tenn., announced that it would offer network security services from Gladiator Technology Services Inc. of Alpharetta, Ga., to its financial institution clients.