SVPCO Closes First Year of Image Exchange with 52 Million Items

SVPCO, which operates an image-exchange network controlled by some of the nation's largest banks, said today it saw its image volume climb 33% last month to a new monthly high of 11.7 million items, allowing the new system to close its first full year having trafficked nearly 52 million items. SVPCO, a unit of New York-based The Clearing House Payments Co. LLC, says the total value of the check images it moved in December came to $73 billion, up 20% over November. The network's peak load came two days after Christmas, with 929,409 items. The New York-based company's Image Payments Network, the largest private-sector image exchange, is closely watched as an indicator of how much banks are check-accepting businesses are embracing image exchange. Experts estimate American consumers and businesses write about 40 billion checks annually, which would leave SVPCO's electronic network with a share of just over 0.1% so far. “Volume in the Image Payments Network grew substantially again last month and is likely to grow at a similar or higher rate in 2006,” said George Thomas, executive vice president at The Clearing House, in a statement. The network, which began operation last January, has seen its monthly volume build from 17,774 and its dollar volume climb from $54.9 million since then. SVPCO attributes its growth last month to a new participating client, M&T Bank, as well as to decisions by other participants to flow more volume through the network. SVPCO connects to the Federal Reserve, which operates an image exchange, and there are two other national private-sector networks, Endpoint Exchange, owned by Milwaukee-based processor Metavante Corp., and Viewpointe Archive Services LLC, which like SVPCO is bank-owned. Ten client banks are now trading images on SVPCO's system, up from two in January. These 10 include: Bank of America Corp., Comerica Bank, Fifth Third Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co., KeyCorp, M&T Bank, National City Corp., UnionBanCal Corp., Wachovia Corp., and Wells Fargo & Co. BofA, JPMorgan Chase, and Wachovia are among the 21 owners of The Clearing House Payments Co. SVPCO's network relies on routing software, called a distributed transfer agent, that allows banks to send and receive check images directly, eliminating the need for a central switch. With image exchange, banks of first deposit send electronic images, rather than the paper originals, to paying banks for settlement in a process that cuts transit-check expense and reduces float by several days. In many cases, receiving banks convert the images back into paper in the form of substitute checks, or print-outs of images, for processing. Substitute checks received the same legal status as the original checks under the Check Clearing for the 21st Century (Check 21) Act, which went into effect almost 15 months ago.