Behind Wausau’s Plans to Recruit ISOs to Sell Remote Deposit Capture

Independent sales organizations are in the cross hairs of at least one vendor of check-transaction processing software looking for ways to sign up more merchants for a product that lets businesses turn paper checks into images they can transmit electronically to their banks. Wausau Financial Systems Inc. this spring will introduce a version of its WebDDL remote-deposit capture product specially designed for use by ISOs. And the Mosinee, Wis.-based company has already started recruiting ISOs with presentations of the product in concert with Epson America Inc., a maker of check scanners. About five ISOs have said they will work with Wausau, and three will be processing remote-capture transactions by April when the company presents its product at a major national trade show for ISOs in Las Vegas, says Mary Winingham, vice president for merchant services. Hired by Wausau in October expressly to head up its efforts to sign up ISOs to sell remote capture, Winingham says she plans to demonstrate Wausau's remote capture service tailored for ISOs at regional shows as well as at the Electronic Transactions Association national conference. An 18-year veteran of the card-processing business, Winingham says remote capture should appeal to ISOs looking for a profitable new product to sell to merchants. The product offers resellers a chance to cultivate new markets and earn revenue from both transaction fees and scanner leases, she says. Although remote capture is typically priced on a flat per-transaction basis, rather than on a percentage as with credit and debit cards, it also can carry monthly charges that make it more lucrative for resellers. “If you're selling the right product to the right merchant, the value is truly there and [the merchant] readily sees it,” she says. “It's not a big conversation.” With remote capture, merchants use scanners to convert paper checks into electronic images, and then use special software to send the images to their banks for processing through the image-exchange networks that have sprung up in the wake of the Check Clearing Act for the 21st Century (Check 21), which took effect in 2004. Although remote capture has proven to be one of the fastest-growing products in the history of electronic transactions, banks have up to now sold it on their own primarily to existing business clients. Winingham says Wausau hopes third-party resellers like ISOs can replicate with remote capture the success they enjoyed selling millions of small merchants on card acceptance. To that end, Winingham is directing an effort to give WebDDL, Wausau's remote-capture portal for financial institutions, features that would appeal to ISOs, including tracking, reporting, and management functions specifically tailored to their needs. The product will also be “bank-agnostic,” she says, rather than suited to a specific institution, as the current product is. “Everything will be ready by March,” she says. Working with Epson, she also plans to give lunches in locations around the country to which small groups of ISOs will be invited to hear how remote capture works and see demonstrations of the product. The first such joint effort was held in December in Chicago. At least another three are planned, Winingham says. Though some ISOs express reservations about the pricing of remote capture, arguing its lack of a percentage-based structure restricts profit potential, at least one ISO executive who saw the December presentation is sold on the product and looks forward to offering it. Gary E Peterson of Arlington Heights Merchant Banc, a Mount Prospect, Ill.-based ISO, says remote capture opens new merchant categories where checks, rather than cards, are the prevalent payment type. “There's a whole host of people I can now walk into that I couldn't walk into before,” he says. “I'm pretty excited about it.”