Viewpointe and SVPCo To Advance Image Exchange For Financial Services Industry

VIEWPOINTE AND SVPCO TO ADVANCE IMAGE EXCHANGE FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES INDUSTRY
Industry leaders will work together to ensure success of banking’s image exchange end game

March 5, 2003– Charlotte, NC – In a move that will bring clarity to the issue of image exchange among financial institutions, Viewpointe Archive Services, LLC, and Small Value Payments Company, LLC, (SVPCo) today announced their agreement to work together to ensure the compatibility of their respective plans for electronic exchange of check images among banks. The alliance will make certain that banks’ interests in image exchange are fully realized –regardless of their imaging strategies.

Electronic check image exchange, known as “image exchange” or “interchange” in the industry, will expedite banks’ operational efficiencies, and reduce payments costs by an estimated $2 billion annually though eliminating the paper flow that today is necessary in the check processing and check payment bank operations. In addition to the operational efficiencies and convenience realized with image exchange, replacing paper checks with electronic images provides further stability to the United States payment system.

“Viewpointe and SVPCo participate in common markets and are fully committed to ‘electronifying’ the check and image exchange; however, each company is focused on separate, but eventually, interdependent exchange initiatives,” stated Hank Farrar, President of SVPCo. The understanding between Viewpointe and SVPCo is necessary to make sure that the models converge in order for banks to take advantage of the full benefits associated with image exchange.”

“There is a lot of excitement in the industry about image exchange. There is also a lot of work to be done by financial institutions before we reach the end game. Our organizations felt it necessary to make it clear that we are working together so that our initiatives come together when our customers are ready,” stated Jerry Chambers, Chief Administrative Office of Viewpointe Archive Services.

The two models:
Viewpointe, storing over 40% of all checks written in the United States, is specifically focused on image archive and usage services – creating a critical mass of check images from the top fifty U.S. Banks and then enabling the Viewpointe customer banks to participate in image exchange within the Viewpointe archive (intrachange). This is happening today - Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase are intrachanging images within the shared Viewpointe archive on a limited scale. Viewpointe and its customers have plans to expand the scale and participation in the image intrachange program.

The Viewpointe model enables banks that use the Viewpointe national archive to capture a check image once, clear the item electronically through the SVPCo ECP settlement system, and then share the image with other Viewpointe customers as needed, as opposed to shipping image files from bank to bank the way paper checks are sent today. Chambers added, “Although we are focused near-term on image intrachange within Viewpointe, we understand the inevitability of image exchange with other archives in the marketplace. Viewpointe and SVPCo will enable our collective customers to exchange images through the SVPCo network switch."

Viewpointe customer banks will be enabled to exchange check images with banks outside the Viewpointe archive (interchange) through SVPCo. SVPCo will provide the network switch that will enable Viewpointe customers one way to exchange images with banks that have stand-alone/independent archives or participate in other non-Viewpointe national archives.

SVPCo is a key provider of the foundation for electronic payment services with their primary efforts being in ECP and ACH. SVPCo’s vision has always been check electronification and industry-wide image exchange. “Viewpointe is a natural participant as one of the nodes on the SVPCo image exchange network. Given that many of the SVPCo owner banks also participate in the Viewpointe national archive, it is important that we work together to plan out our image exchange efforts,” noted Farrar.

About Viewpointe
Viewpointe Archive Services, LLC, is the leading provider of check and document image and archiving and retrieval services and has built the largest shared national archive for major financial institutions. Viewpointe''s customer list includes Bank of America, BB&T, First Tennessee, FleetBoston Financial, HSBC Bank USA, J.P. Morgan Chase & Company, SunTrust Bank, U.S. Bancorp, and Zions Bank. The company has offices in Charlotte, Houston, Boulder, New York, Atlanta, and San Francisco. Viewpointe archives and provides access to over 1 billion new check images each month. More information about Viewpointe is available at www.viewpointe.com.

About SVPCo
SVPCo is made up of 20 banks committed to "electronifying" the check. SVPCo''s services include Electronic Clearing Services, the nation''s largest electronic check presentment service, as well as SafeCHECK, a point-of-sale check-to-debit service, and the Electronic Payments Network, the largest private sector ACH processor. SVPCo is owned by ABN AMRO, Bank of America, Bank of New York, Bank One, BB&T, Citibank, N.A., Comerica, Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, Fleet National Bank, HSBC Bank USA, JPMorgan Chase Bank, KeyBank, Mellon Bank Corporation, National City Bank, PNC Bank, SunTrust, Union Bank of California, U.S. Bancorp, Wachovia Bank, N.A. and Wells Fargo & Co. For more information, search www.SVPCO.com.