Bank technology

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Even before banks began converting checks to automated clearing house transactions at the retail lockbox in 2002, bankers wanted to include corporate checks as well as those of consumers.

After false starts, some banks are again offering limited person-to-person money transfer services. But the most ambitious P-to-P seems to be coming from much smaller outfits - especially credit unions.

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Walgreen Co. says it will reimburse up to 4 million customers who were overcharged on credit and signature debit card transactions during the holidays.

CashNetUSA LLC said it plans a February launch for a stored-value card designed to let payday loan borrowers get their money faster.

Primary Payment Systems Inc., which provides database software designed to spot fraudulent checks a day after deposit, plans to begin marketing a real-time product that it says could help deal with the problems associated with faster clearing times.

Hills Bank and Trust Co. of Hills, Iowa, plans to begin encrypting all its e-mail messages in 2005 to protect customer information on the Internet.

After a series of acquisitions in 2004 that made it a major operator of financial networks, Metavante Corp. capped the year with a deal much closer to its core business, the online outsourcing of financial processing.

Bank of America said Tuesday that it has 12.4 million customers banking online, 72% more than a year ago.

Switching to a new system for tracking incentive payments in its general bank helped Wachovia Corp. to identify inefficiencies in its business environment.

Banks can reduce check fraud by beefing up the automated alerts they offer to online customers about unusual activity in their checking accounts, experts say.

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A year ago check image exchange promised to be the technology horse race of 2004.

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