Trends in Capture 2006 - A Year in Review

2006 was a momentous year for TAWPI as an association and the forms processing and payment industry here in the United States. 2006 seemed to be the year of company mergers and acquisitions. While technological advancements (although somewhat apparent) seem to have taken a back seat to the aforementioned colossal mergers.

December-January- February: On December 9th 2005 TAWPI announced their newest executive board members including; Chair, Oscar Squire PPL Services, Vice Chair, Michael Bichler Mellon Financial Corp., Treasurer, James Everett Fairfax Imaging, Inc. & Secretary, Nancy Darst, eRemit.

Federal Reserve Board approved amendments to its “Regulation CC” to take effect July 1st 2006. The rules define, “remotely created checks” and create a transfer and presentment warranties to shift liability for an unauthorized remotely created check to the institution where it is first deposited. This federal regulation opens the door to an estimated 350% growth rate in adoption of merchant capture from the end of 2004 to the end of 2006.

OPEX Incoming and Scanning, a division of OPEX Corporation, released the next version of its document imaging system, the AS3690. The successor to the popular AS3600 high-speed color scanner, the AS3690 is available as either a stand-alone device (AS3690t), or integrated with an OPEX Rapid Extraction Desk (AS3690i). Coupled with an Extraction Desk, the OPEX AS3690i can open, capture, process, and sort mail with one operator in a single pass.

March April: WAUSAU Financial Systems inked Deal with Kodak- capitalizing on the economics of Check 21. Interwoven and Kofax deepen partnership as Interwoven will resell the Kofax Ascent Capture Product offering an end to end ECM solution. Metavante forms image solutions business by creating Metavante Image Solutions creating an end to end check image and document technology solution. The new Metavante division includes the operations of its affiliates; (AFS- Advanced Financial Solutions, the Endpoint Exchange Network, TREEV, and VECTORsgi.) Federal Reserve Board made final amendments to Regulation E (Electronic Fund Transfer Act) clarifying the responsibilities of parties involved electronic check conversion transactions and require that consumers receive written notification in advance of these transactions.

May/June: ABBYY USA and Panasonic share technology. ABBYY’s OCR bundles with Panasonic Scanners. NACHA voices concern regarding check conversion practices questioning the practice of debiting accounts electronically. “While the practice of check conversion becomes more widely accepted, there are still technical details to be addressed.” TAWPI’s Payment Processing Council releases Check Clearing Options white paper looking specifically from the biller’s point of view. OPEX Corporation wins the 2006 TAWPI Hall of Fame Award while Bob Young Verizon Communications wins the Herbert F. Schantz Distinguished Service Award. EMC

July/August: WAUSAU expands its payment processing offerings, adding ECM capabilities and spearheaded a migration to remote check capture maintaining their commitment to their legacy lockbox and remittance products.

September/October: TAWPI looses a truly dedicated valued member Gayle Myers (Data Entry Services) who passed away unexpectedly on September 30th 2006. Her void will be greatly missed by TAWPI members and TAWPI staff alike.

TAWPI launches Forms Processing & Data Capture Survey with Adobe Systems, AnyDoc Software, Eastman Kodak, EMC Captiva, Kofax, and Readsoft as major sponsors. Open Text acquires Hummingbird. IBM acquires Filenet. Metavante completes VICOR acquisition.

November/December: Oracle buys Stellant. Bank of New York acquires Mellon Financial in a $16.5 billion stock transaction that would create the world’s largest securities-servicing firm. The combined entity will be called Bank of New York Mellon and have annual revenue of more than $12 billion. TAWPI announced their newest executive 2007 board members including; Chair, Bob Young Verizon Communications, Vice Chair,Nancy Darst, eRemit, Treasurer, Paul Engel Vebridge, Secretary, Donald Post, IMERGE Consulting.

TAWPI announces a dramatic format change that effectively triples the content and education opportunities at its flagship Forum. Scheduled for August 12 -15th in Boston Moving to provide specific operational content in key subject areas, the Forum has been expanded to three simultaneous, co-located events.

Three Industry Forums Converging at One Expo. The Remote Check Capture Forum providing the latest best practices in image exchange and remote deposit capture deployment. The Payments/Remittance Forum focused on leading edge solutions for improving payment processing and transaction clearing operations. The Imaging, Forms Processing and Capture Forum offering a comprehensive perspective of data and document capture–from mail extraction to imaging to final archiving.