Press Release SVPCO, the electronic check processing business of The Clearing House Payments Company, says he company’s Image Exchange Network is live, following a two-month test period with KeyBank and JPMorgan Chase.
“The official production launch of the Image Exchange Network is a major milestone that is the result of outstanding teamwork between SVPCO and our participating banks,” says Susan Long, Senior Vice President of SVPCO. “Based on the success of the KeyBank-JPMorgan Chase exchange, we expect a number of other SVPCO owner banks and aggregators to start exchanges shortly.”
SVPCO’s Image Exchange Network, the first large-scale image exchange platform, enables financial institutions of all sizes in all locations to clear and settle check images directly or through other parties. The network allows institutions to create digitized images of paper checks to eliminate the costly expense of physically transporting the check, thus streamlining and expediting the entire clearing process. Electronic check image exchange is expected to save U.S. banks $2.1 billion a year in operational efficiencies and lower costs, according to an SVPCO study.
Tony Gerevics, first vice president of JPMorgan Chase, said: “Image exchange represents the future of the check clearing business in the U.S. We are proud of JPMorgan Chase’s leadership in image, and pleased that this pilot has given us the opportunity to learn firsthand about the operational efficiencies and cost savings that are possible from check truncation.”
Key’s Mike Barnum, Executive Vice President, said: “The exchange of images has been a very valuable experience for Key and demonstrates the effectiveness of our new systems in displacing paper check processing and in ensuring that issues that could arise between two exchange banks have been addressed. It’s clear that as we increase our volumes to a higher production level, the benefits will be significant.”
The initial exchange between KeyBank and JPMChase was managed at a controlled volume level to fully test the operations at each bank. The banks expect to continue to exchange a steadily growing number of electronic check data and image cash letters, increasing volumes throughout 2005.
Financial institutions can connect to SVPCO’s payments system network through a direct Distributed Traffic Agent (DTA) on their site, through the SVPCO Gateway shared access DTA or through a correspondent bank, third party aggregation node, or the Federal Reserve. The SVPCO network enables financial institutions to exchange their files peer-to-peer at top efficiency through a secure network, while activity and summary information is exchanged centrally through SVPCO for management reporting and settlement services. The SVPCO network supports the exchange of electronic data and image for forward presentment, return items and IRD printing.
SVPCO banks represent 58% of U.S. commercial bank deposits and over 60% of the checks in the U.S. This critical mass is essential to aggressively advance electronic images as a replacement for paper in the check clearing process.