Bank technology

It has been four years since First Union Corp. bought Wachovia Corp. and took its name, and though the two sets of customers were merged long ago, the fusion of the online-banking sites is incomplete.

CheckFree Corp., the Atlanta electronic bill payment processor, said a continuing rise in business helped it beat analysts' expectations for the just-ended quarter.

Two more banking companies have begun exchanging check images across the network developed by Clearing House Payments Co.'s SVPCO, but they are skipping a step that others have used to validate the system.

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Bisys Group Inc. said it is looking into certain arrangements in its mutual fund business and has hired lawyers to represent it in a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation.

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The business community's rapid adoption of check conversion has led to widespread use at merchants' cash registers and billers' lockbox sites.

Several large banks let people transfer money online to or from an account at another bank, but some small competitors are taking that idea farther by letting people view information about accounts at other banks, as well as transfer funds, on a single Web page.

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

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The two automated clearing house networks are developing reporting tools to help banks defend themselves against fraudulent payments.

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Someday, the automated clearing house network might be used to transmit files with just information instead of payments.

Metavante Corp.'s first-quarter operating profits surged 56% from a year earlier, to $28.2 million, on the strength of acquisitions and cost-cutting, according to its corporate parent, Marshall & Ilsley Corp. of Milwaukee.

SAN ANTONIO - Every automated clearing house format designed to replace consumer checks posted impressive growth rates last year, and today consumers are using electronic payments more often than checks, according to the Federal Reserve Board.

Corporations objected in 2001 when banks began working on rules for converting check payments to automated clearing house transactions, fearing that they would lose the ability to fight fraud by matching incoming debits against the check-issue files they give their banks.