NEW YORK – Electronic Clearing Services, the electronic check and check image exchange business of The Clearing House Payments Company, LLC., today announced that the SVPCO Check Image Exchange Network is averaging more than $1 billion and over 125,000 check images a day. Daily volume is expected to triple to $3 billion by the end of 2005.
The SVPCO Check Image Exchange Network is the nation’s premier image exchange network, enabling financial institutions to perform a variety of check image clearing and settlement functions. Nine major financial institutions and the Federal Reserve are exchanging images via the Image Exchange Network.
“Averaging $1 billion a day in volume after the first seven months of operation is the first of many milestones as image exchange redefines the check processing business of the entire financial services industry,” said George Thomas, Executive Vice President, The Clearing House. “We now have enough experience to see that once banks complete the implementation and testing process, volume ramps very quickly because the efficiencies are so compelling.”
The majority of the checks processed through the Image Exchange Network have been for higher-dollar volume items. Institutions are typically sending check images that are printed as Image Replacement Documents (IRDs), which are then delivered to institutions for sorting and processing in the same manner as original paper checks. The next step in the image migration path is processing image documents only, which would eliminate the paper production and manual clearing process.
“The volume of images flowing through the Image Exchange Network will increase rapidly as the financial services industry begins to realize the efficiency and reliability of check image exchange,” said Susan Long, Senior Vice President of SVPCO — Electronic Clearing Services. “Image exchange is being embraced across the financial services industry, and adoption will accelerate in 2005. This progress is noteworthy given that the migration to image exchange represents the most complicated and most expensive change in check processing since MICR-technology was developed.”
SVPCO’s unique Check Image Exchange solution is a single, end-to-end system that provides unparalleled control, security and processing efficiency for transmitting check images and other data directly between participants in the industry. The network enables financial institutions to exchange images of checks peer-to-peer without a cumbersome central processing system thereby eliminating the expense of transporting physical checks. Electronic check image exchange is expected to create efficiencies for the banking industry through operational efficiencies and lower costs.
The growing volume of check images is the result of an increasing number of financial institutions participating in the Image Exchange Network. Each of The Clearing House’s 19 owner banks has developed plans to take full advantage of image exchange. Seven are already implemented and will be looking for additional partners. The remaining twelve have committed to implement, with the vast majority likely to be connected to the Image Exchange Network by the end of the year in some capacity. SVPCO banks represent 58% of U.S. commercial bank deposits and over 60% of the checks in the U.S.
