Viewpointe Set to Begin Image Sharing in September

Viewpointe Archive Services LLC announced this week it will begin sharing check images among banks participating in its image-exchange in September. The company has worked out a tentative pricing schedule and is working on systems to perform such value-added functions as checking image quality and translating images from one bank's format to another. The company's plan calls for its 10 participating banks to go live on its image-sharing system in pairs, with the first pair coming on stream in September. “We have the 10 banks all scheduled to participate,” says John G. Lettko, chief executive of the company, which has offices in Houston and Charlotte, N.C., and is owned by four of its participating banks. Sharing will begin with items the banks have in common in the 3-year-old archive, which holds 38 billion images, in a system called image on demand. Later, the company will begin transmitting and receiving images in cases where either banks of first deposit or paying banks are not archive participants. Among Viewpointe's banks are Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., which have tested the image-sharing system, as well as FleetBoston, which has merged with BofA, HSBC Bank USA, and US Bancorp. Collectively, the 10 banks in Viewpointe are capable of delivering between 22 billion and 23 billion checks annually, or about half of all checks written in the U.S. Lettko, who will not say which banks will constitute the first pair, says the order in which the banks begin using Viewpointe may not matter, as it is likely to change by September. He is confident, however, that Viewpointe will be prepared. “We'll be ready to facilitate the banks and the banks tell us they'll be ready,” he says. Similarly, he won't reveal the pricing Viewpointe will charge for image-sharing, saying it too is tentative, since the Viewpointe's service is one that hasn't been attempted before on such a scale. “It's like pricing dreams,” he says. But he adds it's in the hand of the banks and they are “happy” with it. The fees, he says, will be split even between the two banks that are party to each transaction. In addition, the pricing will likely be affected by added functions Lettko says his clients banks have asked for, including checking image quality and translation between differing image formats, a process called transcoding. Unlike other image-exchanges now in operation or soon to go live, Viewpointe relies on an image-on-demand model that calls for banks to retrieve check images from the archive only as needed. Other exchanges are building networks that replace the physical transportation of paper with electronic transmission of images. “If you approach it that way you're automating a paper process and you'll only get limited benefit,” argues Lettko. He recognizes, however, that not all banks will participate, and so Viewpointe is also building exchange capability. It expects to begin sending images in October. Complete, full-time image on demand will require nearly universal participation in Viewpointe, something that may be difficult, given the preference among some banks to control their own image archives. But for now, Lettko isn't worried about attracting more participation. “We'll get it organically, by having a better mousetrap,” he says.