India to Emerge as Third Largest Banking Hub by 2040

(From Bernama.com – June 26, 2007)

Banking sector growth in the major emerging economies of the world would outstrip that in the developed nations before 2050 and India is pegged to take the third place as a banking hub after China and the United States by 2040, a report said. The banking sector will grow significantly faster than gross domestic product (GDP) in the E7 group of emerging economies, consisting China, India, Brazil, Russia, Indonesia, Mexico and Turkey, according to a projection by accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. Total profits from domestic banking in the E7 could be around half those in the G7 - US, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Italy and Canada - by 2050 and larger than in the G7 before 2050, the firm said in its report titled "Banking in 2050: How big will the emerging markets get?" India can rise from relatively low levels today to emerge as the third largest domestic banking market in the world by 2040 and in the long run it could grow faster than China, PTI reported Wednesday quoting the report, as saying here. "While China will continue to grow somewhat faster than India over the next 5 to 10 years but, after that, Chinese growth will be held back by its rapidly ageing population and diminishing returns to its investment-led strategy," PwC Executive Director Jairaj Purandare said. The new report also forecasts that the domestic credit in India would grow to US$ 23 trillion (US$1=RM3.45) in 2050 from US$ 0.4 trillion in 2004, driven by growing middle class in cities and private banks gaining market share in the state run dominant industry. The report examines the possible changes in the scale of the banking sector till 2050 and highlights the pace of change along with challenges for banks world over.

Going to Market with Remote Deposit Capture for Corporate & Commercial Customers

Webinar Informatin:

Almost 30% of banks that offer remote deposit capture to their commercial / corporate customers see it as an essential survival strategy. This webinar will provide basics to help you maximize your investment in remote deposit capture, and will suggest key elements of a successful marketing plan that will help you: target commercial prospects, identify communication channels, create appropriate messaging, and drive commercial customers to your bank.

The session will cover:

• The basic features and benefits associated with remote deposit capture, and how to articulate them to your prospects.
• How to identify market opportunities by verticals.
• A basic set of tools for creating a marketing plan around your remote deposit capture offering.

Ample time will be allotted for questions from the audience.
This webinar will provide a broad overview of the essentials for marketing remote deposit capture. For in-depth strategy advice and a practical tool kit, industry professionals should attend “Essentials for Marketing Remote Deposit Capture” on August 12 at TAWPI 2007 Forums & Expo in Boston. See more at www.tawpi.org/forumexpo.html.

Speaker:

Lisa Collins is director of marketing at Alogent Corp, the industry’s leading image deposit automation solution provider. Collins has more than ten years in technology marketing, including seven years in the payments industry.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND
Business, operations, IT and product strategists responsible for payments, product management and cash management.

Registrations must be received by July 18 @ 5:00 pm EST and will not be accepted without payment. Confirmation and handout materials will be sent to the email address provided on this form. Cancellations must be made in writing to jstar@tawpi.org. 50% refund for cancellations made after July 18.
To register, click here.

View Fees Click Here:

Mobile Banking – Will More Convenience Matter?

From: (CreditUnions.com – June 11, 2007)

Try, if you can, thinking back to the mid-1990 glory days of the early dot.com boom. If you were around the consumer financial services marketplace you will remember the heated debate about what kind of role the Internet would play in service strategy. You will also recall high skepticism about how to justify spending on this new and unproven technology without a clear ROI. After all, how many of our members actually used the “World Wide Web”? Besides, wasn’t the Internet just a playground for younger and more high-tech focused members anyway? And, how many ways beyond the branch and call center did the member really need to gain access to information?

According to Callahan’s 1996 Technology Survey just two credit unions, Stanford FCU (Palo Alto, CA) and Community FCU (Dallas, TX), offered internet home banking in the early part of the year. Fast-forward just over a decade and the notion that the Internet is not a primary service and communication channel is almost laughable. Does convenience matter to the member? You bet it does, and the proof is witnessed in the trends over the last ten years. However, with the benefit of hindsight it is perhaps too easy to discount the legitimate business questions that were being raised at the time.

Of course ROI matters, of course member-value creation needs to be relevant to a significant group of members to be “worth it”, and of course there should be a compelling business case for the cooperative organization as well. Today, mobile banking faces a similar debate and it is hard not to draw parallels. The added obstacle facing mobile banking deployment in 2007 is the déjà vu “been-there-tried-that” feeling that remains as a result of earlier mobile experiments that never quite took off, despite plenty of hype. This has been a sticking point in 2007 for many credit unions that spent a significant amount of money five or six years ago only to abandon their efforts due to low member adoption.

Still, credit union adopters currently tout increased convenience, technology differentiation, future member-retention, and new member relationships. Given the early adoption stage among only a handful of leading credit unions, mobile banking results to date are not likely to impress many skeptics. However, proponents argue that adoption is coming faster than we might expect given that over 200 million Americans now use mobile phones – the majority of which are mobile banking-capable. In addition, they contend, we may be looking in the wrong place for proof of concept.

If trends from the last few years hold true, European and Asian markets likely give us an early glimpse into the future of mobile banking as consumers adopt the technology at much faster rates than in the U.S. First-movers argue that given these trends, adoption is likely inevitable and the added convenience to the member will be the primary driver. Proponents maintain that in 2008, financial institutions which only offer PC-based home banking access could actually seem inconvenient by contrast to many members who already rely on daily mobile communications through devices such as the Blackberry, Treo, Apple iPhone, or other mobile devices. The overriding business strategy with mobile is about being available to the member, wherever they are and whenever they might have a financial need. This includes creating a platform and user base to help the credit union learn and be ready for mobile services that do not currently exist but may be vital to future credit union member service. Perhaps it will be mobile payment technology to replace the debit and credit card (ie. the digital wallet), or person-to-person payments, or other financial service opportunities which haven’t yet been recognized that the ubiquitous cell phone will help to deliver. As with home banking ten years ago, who would have thought online services would rapidly evolve to include bill pay, check images, e-statements, instant loan approval, check depositing, and more. For these reasons, planting the flag early in introducing these mobile services to members could be a very smart move for credit unions.

TAWPI 2007 Forums and Expo Adds EDS as Silver Sponsor

TAWPI has announced that EDS, a leading global technology services company will be a Silver Sponsor of the TAWPI 2007 Forums and Expo this August 12th to 15th in Boston Massachusetts.

The TAWPI 2007 Forums and Expo is renowned for bringing together end-user professionals who share ideas and concepts openly and thoroughly for mutual understanding and knowledge. This event is specifically designed for senior level information technology executives looking for information on how to manage, streamline and optimize their information capture processes.

“We are excited to have a company with such a strong reputation in the industry like EDS participating so deeply with our show.” “We feel EDS will bring extreme value to attendees on the show floor and answer many of our member’s business issues that they are faced with today.” Frank Moran President TAWPI.

About EDS

EDS (NYSE: EDS) is a leading global technology services company delivering business solutions to its clients. EDS founded the information technology outsourcing industry 45 years ago. Today, EDS delivers a broad portfolio of information technology and business process outsourcing services to clients in the manufacturing, financial services, healthcare, communications, energy, transportation, and consumer and retail industries and to governments around the world. Learn more at eds.com.

About TAWPI

TAWPI is a Membership Association dedicated to helping practitioners in the payments automation, distributed capture, and imaging & forms processing arenas maximize their value as professionals, enhance operations efficiency and effectiveness, and position their organizations for success in the future. For more information, visit www.tawpi.org.

Orbograph and AudioTel Corporation Sign Reseller Agreement

Orbograph Ltd., a leading developer of automated recognition software and supplier of
web-based, remote data entry/repair services, today announced that it has signed a reseller agreement with AudioTel Corporation, a leading provider of automated payment processing solutions. In addition to its RemitPlus and Merchant Capture products, AudioTel will now provide web-based check and form recognition through Orbograph’s Key-Pay Convene data entry/reject repair solution.

AudioTel's RemitPlus solution is an automated and affordable turnkey system, which enables customers to scan and capture check images and forms, deposit funds electronically, and credit payments via an automated accounts-receivable update with minimal manual key entry.

Leveraging Orbograph’s patented Key-Pay technology, Key-Pay Convene is a fully internet-based distributed data entry/reject-repair solution, which is tightly integrated with state-of-the-art advanced OCR/ICR tools. It streamlines business processes, reduces costs and improves accuracy and efficiency in automated forms processing. Key-Pay Convene works by automatically sending image snippets of only those individual fields in a form that contain characters which cannot be read by the recognition engine, to a virtually unlimited pool of data repair personnel. Key-Pay Convene continuously monitors and verifies output accuracy and throughput in order to offer the highest possible quality standards.

Commenting on the announcement, Roni Boker, Key-Pay Convene Product Manager for Orbograph, stated: “We are very excited to be working with AudioTel, an industry leader in the remittance and merchant capture marketplace, and look forward to a successful and mutually beneficial long-term relationship. While this important agreement marks the first time that a remittance application provider has teamed up with Orbograph to utilize Key-Pay Convene’s revolutionary remote, on-demand keying benefits, given the quick turnaround times and high accuracy levels demanded by the industry, we expect to see rapid adoption of this technology by other providers.”

Fred Campos, Vice President of Remittance Products for AudioTel, added: “We can now offer a more accurate, potentially keyless solution. Merchant capture can now be deployed as a scan and transmit system, with the exception items being keyed offsite. What really appealed to us about Key-Pay Convene is that it is not a ‘seat based’ model that works one-toone; but rather a fully integrated backend snippet many-to-many concept that can be turned off or on as needed. As a result, our remittance and lockbox customers will be able to have almost anything keyed from any form or check without having to staff up for load leveling. This new paradigm changes remittance processing with the same magnitude that CAR/LAR technology did in the past.”

About Orbograph
Orbograph (www.orbograph.com), a subsidiary of Orbotech (NASDAQ/NM SYMBOL: ORBK), is a leading developer of recognition solutions for the U.S. check processing and business process outsourcing markets. Orbograph’s technologies are in use at hundreds of banks and financial institutions and service bureaus across North America, processing millions
of documents each day. Through its recognition solutions, fraud detection, business process outsourcing technologies and image quality assurance applications, Orbograph enables customers to reduce costs, improve operational efficiencies and achieve rapid ROI. For more information please contact Roni Boker at roni.boker@orbograph.com or 978.901.5048.

About AudioTel
AudioTel Corporation offers a suite of banking software solutions including Internet banking, voice response, check processing and archiving as well as a fully integrated remittance and merchant capture solution for government and
commercial enterprises. Founded in 1993, AudioTel is based near Dallas, Texas and serves over 1,500 financial institutions across the country. You can find more information by visiting their websites at www.audiotel.com and www.remitplus.com. For more information please contact us at sales@audiotel.com or 800.239.5130.

ECM Software Market Will Reach $4.2 Billon in 2010

Due to the increasing need for companies to manage

content at the enterprise level, the worldwide enterprise content management (ECM) software market is expected to grow more than 12 percent per year through 2010, from $2.6 billion in 2006 to more than $4.2 billion in 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. In 2007, worldwide ECM revenue is projected to total $2.9 billion, a 12.8 percent increase from 2006.

The vast majority of the information a company has is unstructured data residing in word processing documents, presentations, rich media files, spreadsheets and other file formats. Companies must make this content available to workers, business partner’s customers, and applications across the organization to automate business processes, increase efficiency, reduce costs and repetitiveness, make employees more effective and gain competitive advantages.

“For many organizations, unstructured content is fundamentally out of control,” said Tom Eid, research vice president for Gartner. “Employees are creating all types of content for internal and external use with delivery through both formal and informal channels (such as wikis and blogs). While some of this business-specific content is now being managed through insurance claims processing, loan origination, case management and Web content management, the vast majority of this content is not being managed as an enterprise asset.”

Gartner analysts said many factors will shape the ECM market over the next several years. Vendors and the individual technology markets from which they come will continue to consolidate. The quality, performance and ease of use of software products will improve. ECM offerings will split into two tiers: broad, platform-based solutions will tackle heavy-duty chores, such as focusing on process-centric and mission-critical documents, such as compliance efforts, while streamlined basic content services (BCS) offerings will appeal to companies that need only entry-level functions, such as document security and library services.

“In many instances, it is appropriate to have BCS and ECM technologies being used together,” Mr. Eid said. “BCS will increase the adoption of ECM technologies. As more content is created, more content will need to be managed. As the content becomes more valued, it will become more of a corporate asset that is managed in a more comprehensive manner through ECM offerings.”

Convergence of Payments and Document Processing

Probably my most anticipated educational session at the TAWPI Show this August in Boston will be (believe it or not) taking place at 3:30pm on Sunday. If you haven't yet checked out the session's taking place on Sunday you better look again at the program. Some great stuff there.. The session I'm talking about is entitled; The Convergence of Payments & Document Processing- Opportunities & Challenges.

We've got some heavy hitters from the TAWPI board sitting on this panel namely Bob Young from Verizon, Joe Sass US Bank, Linda Dollens Indiana Department of Revenue, Mark Stevens OPEX, Bruce Wallace Wells Fargo and our moderator will be Doug Hartsema JP Morgan Chase.

What's more interesting however is the topic and really how much of a reality the convergence of payments and document processing is today. It is interesting for me to sit in the middle and look over both sides of the fence. With Check 21 becoming a reality it opens the doors to all sorts of providers out there to jump into the fun. Some vendors who have traditionally been looked at as only document capture guys cannot be categorized as such anymore like a, Kofax, ReadSoft, AnyDoc, etc. and other's who have been looked at more as strictly check capture folks, WAUSAU, Metavante, NetDeposit, J&B Software, Alogent, etc. are or will soon begin to cross-pollunate into both business applications. The landscape is getting hazy when it comes to who to go with for a check or document capture provider and more and guys who have never clashed against each other in RFP's will begin to do so. It won't matter anymore whether the document is a Check or an EOB.

Another interesting trend to think about in this convergence game between check and document and seems to be more under the radar screen are these large outsourcing check processing and remittance processing companies offering more traditional forms processing services on top of their check processing services. Not a far jump for them either. The thing is, I don't think the Service Bureau's who are strictly focused on forms processing are seeing this coming down the road...

Regardless, this session on Sunday shouldn't be missed.

TRUSTMARK NATIONAL BANK BEGINS LIVE PROCESSING WITH METAVANTE’S IMAGE EXCHANGE SOLUTIONS

Trustmark National Bank processing both incoming and outgoing image cash letters

Metavante Corporation, the technology subsidiary of Marshall & Ilsley Corporation (NYSE: MI), today announced that Trustmark National Bank has begun live processing with two of Metavante’s premier image exchange solutions. Headquartered in Jackson, Mississippi, Trustmark National Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of Trustmark Corporation.
After a thorough competitive evaluation, Trustmark National Bank selected Metavante’s VECTOR: ImageEX™ and VECTOR: IQA™ to gain the operational and financial benefits of processing incoming and outgoing Image Cash Letters, as well as image-based items received from remote deposit capture locations.

Image Cash Letters are a collection of deposited check images transmitted electronically to Federal Reserve Banks or correspondent banks for presentment to the paying banks as images or substitute checks. Image Cash Letters reduce the transportation infrastructure needed to move paper checks, speeding the availability of funds by sending electronic images for check processing. Image Cash Letters also reduce check fraud by accelerating return item notifications, meeting a crucial need for businesses and financial institutions.
VECTOR: ImageEX and VECTOR: IQA go beyond traditional Image Cash Letters, providing Trustmark with additional capabilities such as duplicate cash letter and bundle detection, and deadline editing – to ensure that items are accurately sent on schedule. Since not all endpoints will be "image exchange ready," the VECTOR solutions can also create Image Replacement Documents (IRDs).

"Trustmark is now processing incoming remote capture X9.37 Incoming Cash Letters rather than just printing IRDs for these items," said Nick Anderson, senior vice president, Trustmark National Bank. "We’ve also begun sending transit items as outgoing image cash letters to the Fed and several regional banks. VECTOR: ImageEX and VECTOR: IQA are helping Trustmark automate receivables and shorten the traditional clearing and settlement process, and best of all, we have so far accomplished this with no errors or rejects."

"The strong momentum for image exchange continues to build across the country," said Brian Hurdis, president, Metavante Image Solutions. "Metavante Image Solutions was one of the first to bring image exchange solutions to the market and we remain a leader in driving the financial services industry to a more efficient environment for processing electronic payments."

Metavante Image Solutions provides comprehensive solutions that help banks and businesses transition from paper to electronic payments and image processing. Solutions that can be delivered in-house or outsourced include distributed capture, check and remittance processing, fraud detection, and document and report management. Customers encompass banks and corporations of all sizes worldwide from de novo banks to the largest financial institutions and corporations.

About Trustmark Corporation Trustmark is a financial services company providing banking and financial solutions through over 150 offices and 2,700 associates in Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas. For additional information, visit Trustmark’s website at www.trustmark.com.

Back Office Conversion (BOC)- A Practical Guide for Payments Processing Professionals

TAWPI and TAWPI's Payments to Capture Clearing Council (PCC) has announced our new handbook Back Office Conversion (BOC)- A Practical Guide for Payments Processing Professionals. This comprehensive handbook will give you everything you need to know about Back Office Conversion (BOC). Subjects covered include: Key BOC Rules & Regulations, Benefits of BOC, Issues to Consider when Deciding to Implement BOC, Building a Business Case for BOC, Tips for Choosing a BOC Solution, Potential Fraud Issues.

For Full Executive Summary Click Here:

Sponosord by: Alogent, Comerica Bank, First National Bank, HSBC, Mellon, NEACH, META, Solutran, US Dataworks, and WAUSAU.

Up to 3.1 billion checks were converted to ACH payments in 2006, up more than 36 percent from 2005, according to NACHA and TAWPI members have been out in front of this tremendous growth, having used forms of electronic check conversion since 1999. Under the new BOC rules, retailers and other billers can convert eligible checks to Automated Clearing House (ACH) debits in a controlled environment in the back-office rather than at the point-of-sale or at manned bill payment locations. Businesses no longer have to obtain a signature authorization for conversion or have scanners installed at each checkout or bill payment location. A business needs only to disclose to its customers that their checks will be converted into electronic transactions by means of a notice at the register and on a document that customers take with them, such as the back of a receipt. NACHA says that this is consistent with requirements of the Federal Reserve’s Regulation E.

This document will provide you with a comprehensive overview of BOC. The intended audience is organizations that receive consumer checks at manned payment locations, and financial services companies that are evaluating whether to offer BOC services to their clients. Additionally, vendors offering software and hardware solutions to enable BOC will find this document useful to better understand how their customers are evaluating the business case for BOC. This project was undertaken in response to requests from payments strategists for a comprehensive, actionable guide to understanding and evaluating BOC. Please note that this document is not intended to provide an argument for or against BOC or ACH – but rather to provide information that organizations can use to develop their payment strategies. Special thanks are given to members of the Business Issues Work Group and Operations Work Group of the TAWPI PCC Council for providing valuable information, insight and expertise on BOC. To order the full primer click here:

The PCC Council is comprised of a wide representation of industry segments with a strong interest in electronic check conversion, including large retail billers, lockbox processors, technology vendors and financial institutions. Industries represented include banking, telecommunications, utilities, credit card, retail, insurance and government. The group includes numerous participants having firsthand experience with BOC as well as those in evaluation stages.

Intelligent Document Scanning--Question for the Experts?

I recently spoke with a TAWPI member and they have a customer that is interested in being able to scan incoming invoices, create a file to their AP system and then generate a file out of their accounting system and have a bill pay company “pay the bills” and then the bill pay co. send a file back so that can be uploaded into the customers accounting system to perform account reconciliation on about 2,000 accounts. ACH is not in the picture.

...the monthly check volume is approx. 8,300 and growing
...this customer has a scanning system today, but I am not quite sure what the system is at this point
...the accounting system is proprietary and is in sequel, they expect to be able to create a file in whatever required format is needed

Any words of wisdom from the TAWPI community?

Forget Contacless Payments..Insert Banking Mircochip.

The Matrix," the sci-fi box-office smash, envisions a future in which artificially intelligent computers take over. Instead of programming the computers, humans become the slave race, serving as living batteries that provide energy for their former desktop tools…..We’re not quite there yet but if Visa or MasterCard had their way contactless chip’s would be implanted in our hands at birth with a fixed low APR rate. Maybe even 0% APR for your first 18 years of life? Birth certificates would be signed and shortly thereafter glowing proud parent’s would go from hospital bed into offices and negotiate with sales rep's from Visa in one room and than move to the MasterCard suite. You thought buying a new SUV was bad.

(Digital Transactions - May 31, 2007) All that being said information is beginning to emerge indicating that consumer usage of contactless devices for payments may be picking up. According to an Internet survey conducted by Atlanta-based Synergistics Research Corp. late last year, 9% of respondents had used a contactless card or fob. In two previous surveys, both conducted by phone in late 2005 and late 2004, usage had been flat at 4%. The studies involved 1,000 consumers. On Thursday, another researcher, Report Buyer, estimated contactless transactions in the U.S totaled 777 million in 2006 on 27 million cards and fobs, or around 3% of all general-purpose credit card and signature-debit card transactions. The U.K. firm projects these numbers will grow to 2.2 billion transactions on 109 million devices by 2011.

You know I am probably in the age range and demographic that these researcher's would consider as someone who would adapt to this technology. I remember when Speed Pass came out at Exxon gas stations. I wasn't impressed back then and I am still not moved to adapt today.…..but you never know my wife is due with twins this September. Imagine the serious negotiation power I would have with the card companies with two babies.