Second Keynote Announced-TAWPI Forums and Expo August 12th to 15th Boston

The TAWPI 2007 Forums and Expo taking place August 12th to 15th in Boston has announced Jim Cunha is Senior Vice President of the Payments and Treasury Services Group from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. His group’s responsibilities include: First District Check Processing, Business Development and ACH support, as well as Wholesale Payment operations support for six Districts. The group is also responsible for two emerging payment businesses for the U.S. Treasury: Stored Value Card (SVC) and Internet Payments Platform (IPP). SVC is a prepaid smartcard based service used by the Department of Defense for domestic training bases and overseas peace-keeping bases. IPP, scheduled for production in late 2007, will help automate the purchase order and invoice exchange processing for US government agencies and their vendors, and will function as a central repository for vendor payment related information. The group works collaboratively with the Boston Research Department to support the Bank’s Emerging Payment Research Group to better understand consumer behaviors towards payments and identify potential incentives and barriers to the adoption of electronic forms or payment. Finally, his group includes a number of areas that support the Federal Reserve System’s Check 21, check image, and ANSI payment standards efforts.

Jim has worked at the Bank since 1984. Prior to that, he worked at Fleet National
Bank. He has a BS in Accounting and Philosophy from Northeastern University and a
BA in Computer Science from Rhode Island College.

Check 21 Services-Remote Deposit Capture Forum

Many of the leading Remote Deposit Capture and Check 21 service providers will be displaying their solutions at TAWPI's 2007 Forums and Expo this August in Boston MA. Some of the primary remote deposit capture providers to meet will be; Alogent Corporation, NetDeposit, WAUSAU, JB Software, Unisys, Metavante Image Solutions, Avalon International, Open Solutions, Remit Pro, & Diversified Check Solutions. At this years event, TAWPI has dedicated an entire forum and specific educational sessions for Remote Deposit Capture discussing real world implementation in banks and corporations with end-user case studies and business application best practices. Find out how Brinks implemented their next generation vault cash management through ASP-based Remote Deposit Capture or how Bank of Oklahoma successfully deployed their Remote Deposit Capture solution. Along with educational case studies you will have an opportunity to network with colleagues and peers at TAWPI's industry round-table discussions specifically for Treasury and Cash Management professionals and/or participate in vertically orientated round-table discsussions. Round-tables are on a first come first serve basis and will sell out. Register now!!

Visit http://www.tawpi.org/forumexpo.html for more information.

Undertones of eDiscovery, Litigation Support, and Litigation Preparedness at recent ECM Event

I got somewhat caught by surprise walking into the newly renovated Boston Convention Center for the AIIM-On-Demand Event last week and seeing a hanging banner for FAST eDiscovery litigation protection enterprise search technology solutions. This is not what I expected as the first vendor that would pop out and catch my eye. I guess I was thinking more in lines of a big Kodak sign or an EMC directional sign. Regardless, I quickly dismissed this as I got my badge at registration. The reason for my fleeting interest was because of my background in the litigation support and eDiscovery industry. To give you an idea before my day's with TAWPI, in Chicago I worked on and supported many of the largest litigation cases in the country.

To my surprise and later on meeting with many of the vendors on the ECM side of the floor I discovered more and more exhibitors were talking about litigation support and eDiscovery. Iron Mountain brilliantly has introduced an email management tool for storage which plugs into your companies infrastructure and restores, organizes, and delivers email and other records for litigation preparedness. So when you get sued (not if but when) a company can easily pull the pertinent emails involved in the case and quickly and efficiently pass them along to their defense team. Computer System Innovations was also showing software for the legal industry and NUANCE displayed a capture solution with redaction capabilities. The only problem, this show did not seem to attract this type of audience to pitch these services to at least from my perspective and talking with some folks on the floor? Speaking with one of the exhibitors about redaction he told me that I was the first person walking around who knew what redaction was...not a good sign.

Now I'm not saying that ECM has nothing to do with email management and ultimately eDiscovery and litigation support. But my experience moving over from the legal vertical market to a broader corporate market focus with verticals like Financial Services and Insurance it seems many of the vendors playing in that space do not understand who the major players and decision makers are and how to cross-sell into the legal industry. The reason no one knew what redaction was at the AIIM Show is because paralegals are doing redaction for attorneys and partners on litigation cases. These professionals are rarely going to tradeshows. The end-users in this space currently are the litigation paralegals and litigation support staff. Many times law firms are outsourcing their litigation scanning and eDiscovery to companies like a Williams Lea, IKON, and/or Merrill. Even major accounting and consulting players like Price Waterhouse Coopers and Deloitte and Touche are ramping up eDiscovery services for their clients.

In the end though it will really comes down to whether or not corporate customers who are/will be represented by law firms will proactively prepare for litigation or will they hold off on those expenses and let the legal team do their thing?