Check Image Exchange Volume Tops 1 Million Items a Day

SVPCO-Electronic Clearing Services, the electronic check and check image exchange business of The Clearing House Payments Company L.L.C., today reported that daily average check image volume in the Image Payments Network grew 47% in February and surpassed 1 million items a day for the first time.

The Image Payments Network is the nation’s private-sector leader in image payments by dollar value and total number of items, according to publicly available information.

For February, SVPCO reported the following data for the Image Payments Network:

• 1,022,166 in daily average items, an increase of 47.3% percent compared to January 2006
• 19.4 million in total monthly items, an increase of 40% percent compared to January 2006
• The peak day of the month was February 21 when 1,950,162 items were transmitted
• $3.9 billion in daily average dollar value, a decrease of 4.8% compared to January 2006
• $74.4 billion in total monthly dollar value, a decrease of 9.6% compared to January 2006
• Twelve banks were exchanging images, in addition to significant volume being exchanged through the network’s connection to the Federal Reserve and EDS.

In January 2005, when the Image Payments Network began operations, daily average dollar value was $2.6 million, total monthly dollar value was $55 million, daily average items were 850, and total monthly items were 18,000. Two banks were exchanging images through the Image Payments Network in January 2005. Historical data can be found at http://www.svpco.com.

“February’s check image exchange volume of 1 million items per day marks a new milestone for the Image Payments Network,” said George Thomas, Executive Vice President of The Clearing House. “We are extremely pleased with the progress our customers are making and expect this very positive growth trend to continue. At the current growth rate, the number of daily items in the first quarter of 2006 will exceed the total number for 2005.”

Susan Long, Senior Vice President of The Clearing House, responsible for SVPCO-Electronic Clearing Services said: “The Image Payments Network experienced another month of exceptional growth in daily items – the leading indicator for evaluating image exchange. This phenomenal growth rate is likely to continue following the Federal Reserve’s successful transmission in February of electronic cash letters to an institution connected to the network. This factor will contribute to the continued growth as additional institutions participate in the upcoming months. We urge institutions of all sizes to participate in the Image Payments Network, the clear leader in image exchange and the only image exchange system connected to the Federal Reserve.”

The Image Payments Network is a single, end-to-end system that provides unparalleled control, security and processing efficiency for transmitting and settling check images and other data directly between participants in the industry. The network enables financial institutions to exchange and settle check images peer-to-peer, without a cumbersome central processing system, thereby eliminating the expense of transporting physical checks.

Through February, institutions participating in the Image Payments Network were Bank of America, Comerica Bank, EDS, The Federal Reserve Bank, Fifth Third, HSBC Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co., KeyCorp, LaSalle Bank, M&T Bank, National City Corp., Union Bank of California, Wachovia Corp., and Wells Fargo. Through its relationship with the Federal Reserve, the Image Payments Network can reach more than 10,000 endpoints and help financial institutions of all sizes take advantage of image exchange.