LAS VEGAS —  NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR) and SVPCo are working together to advance the industry's adoption of cost-effective and secure image exchange and check truncation, both companies announced at the recent BAI TransPay show.

NCR' will integrate its ImageMark technology with VECTORsgi's applications to provide a check-truncation solution supporting outward and inward clearing workflows, electronic check presentment (ECP) cash lettering, distributed capture, enterprise archive and "day 2" exception processing, all integrated to the SVPCo exchange and settlement service.

"SVPCo is committed to helping financial institutions migrate from paper to electronic payments," said Hank Farrar, president and chief operating officer of SVPCo, in a news release. "NCR's widely used solutions will help us reach financial institutions of all sizes for our electronic check-clearing services, while at the same time positioning NCR's customers to clear and settle their payments through check-image exchange."

According to an SVPCo study, electronic check-image exchange will create operational efficiencies for banks across the United States and reduce industry-wide operating costs by an estimated $2.1 billion annually.  Eliminating the dependency on paper will improve operational efficiencies, while providing further stability to the U.S. payments system.

SVPCo is owned by 22 of the largest banks in the United Sates and The Clearing House.  The SVPCo bank owners represent over 61 percent of U.S. commercial bank deposits. SVPCo's services include Electronic Clearing Services, the nation's largest electronic check presentment service, and the Electronic Payments Network, the only private-sector ACH processor in the U.S.

NCR recently announced that it would link to the Endpoint Exchange Network, which provides exchange, clearing and settlement capabilities for community banks. (See related story NCR to link to Endpoint Exchange Network) 

In other Check 21-related news, Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) recently selected NCR's ImageMark Transaction Manager as its check-image platform for processing supporting multiple image capture devices and received image files. Wells Fargo is deploying this technology at its 15 check-processing centers, making it one of the largest image-based check-processing operations in the United States.

This commitment follows the successful implementation of NCR's image-based technology at Wells Fargo's Tempe, Ariz., operations center. Wells Fargo plans to complete its system rollout by year-end. This platform will perform validation, automatic character recognition, exception processing and balancing, lowering costs and improving production efficiency and the delivery of quality service.

"ImageMark Transaction Manager allows us to efficiently use electronic images to consolidate processing from multiple item streams into a single workflow process to eliminate disparate back-end processes.  It provides us with a foundation for processing high-quality data and images. These capabilities are critical in our preparation for check-image exchange," said Kevin Mitchell, senior vice president, Wells Fargo.

ImageMark Transaction Manager's advanced image and data workflow technologies can be utilized from multiple deposit streams including branches, ATMs, commercial locations and in-bound image electronic check processing (ECP) items from other banks. This system completes the processing of all check-based transactions and readies them for archiving, image exchange and image-replacement document creation.

"We plan to capture images as close to the point of presentment as possible. ImageMark will be a significant part of our overall payment image strategy," said Kevin Dabney, executive vice president, Wells Fargo.