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The national network for the automated clearing house system is sifting through comments on a new rule that would levy fines on banks that fail to reduce return rates to below 1% for all client originators and for all categories of ACH transactions. Within a week or so, says the …

Having already announced last year its plan to shutter 13 check-processing facilities by the end of 2004, the Federal Reserve now says in a statement released this week it plans further closures. The announcement from the Fed does not indicate how many locations might be affected, nor is it specific …

The volume of checks processed by the Federal Reserve dove nearly 6% in the first quarter, reflecting the impact of various electronic payment methods on the nation's usage of paper checks. According to the latest data released by the Fed, the number of checks it cleared in the first quarter …

With rising transaction costs leading many retailers to look at the automated clearing house as a less expensive form of electronic payment, at least one leading bank executive is publicly throwing cold water on the concept of proprietary retail debit cards based on the ACH. Jonathan Wilk, senior vice president …

Use of the automated clearing house for various electronic consumer transactions continued to climb in the first quarter, rising 27% from the fourth quarter of 2003 and 123% over the year-ago period, according to the National Automated Clearing House Association, Herndon, Va. Electronic checks?in which transactions are converted to electronic …

BioPay LLC today announced it has enrolled 1 million consumers in its biometric check-cashing and payment services since the services started in June 2000 and September 2003, respectively. The Herndon, Va.-based company also said it has processed almost 7.5 million transactions with a value of $3 billion in that time. …

A draft of a new American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard for electronic exchange of checks and check data among banks and processors will be ready for ballot this summer, and could be ready for trial use this year, according to a member of the committee working on the standard. …

With at least four separate efforts under way to build national image-exchange networks, some banking officials are starting to ask whether the substantial investment banks and processors are making in these new networks to carry check images between financial institutions is really necessary. The systems required to achieve transfer of …

In a sign of how fast an organization can convert paper transactions to electronic, the National Automated Clearing House Association announced today that the home-mortgage unit of Wells Fargo & Co. will process 88% of its payments electronically in the first quarter, up from 36% only a year ago and …

A brief reference to a rival debit card network in a recent document sent from Visa USA Inc. to its members has raised the hackles of the co-founder of that network and embroiled him in a debate with Visa USA chief executive Carl Pascarella over the risk associated with debit …

The Herndon, Va.-based National Automated Clearing House Association announced its members have approved a new rule governing third-party processing of automated clearing house (ACH) transactions. The rule, an amendment to the NACHA Operating Rules that goes into effect next December, requires that third parties agree to be bound by the …

Pay By Touch, a San Francisco-based company offering a biometrics-based technology that allows consumers to pay at the point of sale without presenting a card, keyfob, token, or any other payment medium, announced today that it has formed an alliance with IBM Corp. that should give the fledgling biometrics company …

Two of the nation's largest regional automated clearing houses will now be part of the same company with the merger of parent payments clearing houses based in New York and Chicago. The Clearing House in New York (formerly the New York Clearing House) and the Chicago Clearing House Association announced …

Bank of America Corp. took in far and away more ACH payments last year than any other receiving institution, according to statistics released today by the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA). The association's first annual ranking of receiving institutions shows BofA, headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., in first place for …

The rate of unauthorized e-check transactions by telephone is down 88% over the last four quarters, reports the National Automated Clearing House Association. NACHA credits its ability to trace unauthorized phone payments to their source for the plunge in fraudulent e-check payments by phone to 0.15% of all third-quarter telephone …