Check Image Archive: The Centerpiece of your Payments Infrastructure

Today, Oct 2005 by Trent, Tiffany, Lorenzo, Les

Advanced Financial Solutions (AFS), a Metavante company, provides global leadership in all forms of image-based payment processing solutions. AFS check imaging, check archival, remittance, document processing, Internet, and ASP-based solutions enable organizalions across all the markets that AFS serves - banking, insurance, energy, transportation, credit, and government operations - to process payments, transactions, and documents at peak efficiency and profitability.

Check Image Archive in a Pre-Check 21 World

Historically, financial institutions have used image archives as the central repository for retaining images of checks, deposit tickets, and related documents. Check image archive enables large-scale storage and the substitution of images and electronic delivery in place of physical paper items.

Over the past decade, check image archive has facilitated the consolidation of back-office processing, reduced paper handling through the exchange of images, and greatly streamlined the research and adjustments process. Check image archive has provided the common foundation for backoffice, customer service, and product delivery - the perfect marriage of operational savings and new service offerings.

AFS introduced ImageDepot check image archive to the banking community in 1996 (Pre-Check 21) as a complete solution for the long-term archive and retrieval of check data and associated images generated by both the AFS ImageVision item processing system, and from competitive image-item processing systems. Since then, hundreds of financial institutions and third party imageitem processing service providers around the world have selected AFS ImageDepot for their check image archive.

New Check Image Offerings In a Post-Check 21 World

In the Post-Check 21 processing environment in which we are now operating, remote deposit capture is quickly emerging as the fastest growing payments technology. Remote deposit capture provides for the capture of check images from every point-of-entry - the bank branch, ATM, retail merchant point-of-sale, the treasury management office, accounting department, cash office, lockbox, or any location where deposits are received.

Check Image Archive Integration with Remote Deposit Capture

Capturing checks earlier in the deposit process allows financial institutions to reduce their operating costs through reduced transportation and back-office processing requirements and improved float management.

Remote deposit capture is growing in popularity with corporate and small business customers because it allows them to eliminate daily bank deposit runs and collect their money faster. Financial institutions like it because it decreases their non-interest expense. Remote deposit capture applications are designed for compatibility with the existing payments environment and are easily integrated with the AFS ImageDepot.

Positioned for Check Image Exchange

AFS ImageDepot provides a common storage platform for all image item-processing requirements and has proven to be an extremely effective solution for financial institutions looking to integrate prime pass image capture with check image archive, positioning these institutions to clear and settle their payments through check image exchange.

Check image exchange provides same or next day availability of funds, providing improved float management. Capturing an extra day or two of float on all the payments processed means better cash management and more profits for your institution.

AFS ImageDepot - The Centerpiece of Your Payments Franchise

Over the past nine years, AFS ImageDepot has evolved into a premier check image archive. Recent enhancements to the system go beyond digital image archiving to creating the centerpiece of a new payments infrastructure, a more comprehensive storage management paradigm - one that integrates and centralizes check images from every point of presentment - removing paper from the process, lowering the cost of payment processing, accelerating check clearing and maximizing cash flow.

AFS ImageDepot controls costs, automates tasks, and provides a map to the benefits and cost savings of remote deposit capture and check image exchange. AFS ImageDepot check image archive delivers measurable value to a financial institution and its customers. The investment in check image archive produces dividends as the efficiencies, cost savings, and new fee revenues continue to accrue annually. Financial institutions that do not embrace image archive may find their ability to deliver all of the new remote deposit capture applications and image-exchange based clearing and settlement services severely diminished.

Tiffany Trent is the AFS Director of Solutions Engineering. She can be reached at 405-782-1401 or by e-mail at: ttrent@afsimage.com

Les Lorenzo works in the Marketing Department at AFS. He can be reached at 214-557-8447 or by e-mail at: llorenzo@afsimage.com.