Top 10 Considerations for 2014 Budgeting in Check Processing

As we end another year of relatively stable check volumes in the financial industry, there are a number of cost-effective alternatives with excellent and proven return on investment which should be strong considerations for your 2014 budget. Although there is a decline in check volumes, it’s a stable decline, which implies predictability and less risk. Also, as product adoption curves of distributed capture points increase, a financial institution can better plan for significant improvements for each workflow.

Several of these considerations include:

1. Efficiencies in Branch and Centralized Workflows:
   1. Pure multi-engine recognition technologies deliver over 90% read rates while blended full automation solutions go to 98%+. Is your organization still spending time with data entry? If so, now is the time to end this process.
   2. Balancing can still add a burden to check workflows due to older recognition technologies. Cut balancing overhead by 50%+ with new technologies.
2. Customer Retail Experience: New recognition technologies deliver virtually 100% read rates on retail transactions. By delivering straight-through-processing at the teller line, the cross sale process is easier, the overall experience is improved and the employee operation is simplified.
3. Treasury and RDC: There are a wide range of RDC implementations, but one constant remains; if the customer has over 30 checks, they are typically rebalancing every transaction. Eliminate this step by delivering only a single misread per 500 items.
4. Mobile RDC: The user experience continues to improve with this approach; however, many in the industry claim success rates of only 70%. Leverage a 2^nd recognition engine strategy and boost this number to closer to 95%+. Think of how the adoption will improve with this kind of approach.
5. Check Fraud: “Long live check fraud” might be an appropriate claim as banks budget to “live with” losses and focus on other workflows. Significant improvements have been attained just over the past several years which can be applied to real-time teller transactions, RDC as well as mobile. Prices for image analysis solutions have declined, and are much more attractive than a few years ago.
6. Corporate Fraud: Payee Name Verification (PNV) as an add-on to Positive Pay systems has been a very active market. Both community and regional financials are now offering this service to compete with big banks.
7. Data Mining and Big Data: Several banks have been testing the ability to use payee and payer information from checks within their big data solutions. This is a bit less proven than the other areas, but has a great potential upside.
8. Verify Amounts: Many checks come to the paying bank with incorrect amounts on them. You don’t know about it until customers complain. Locate and correct these items before they hit your retail and corporate accounts.
9. Endorsement Validation: The coolest feature hardly ever utilized in the industry is Automated Endorsement Analysis. With the risk of depositing items twice in RDC increasing, this single capability can become a game changer.
10. Distributed Recognition Reporting: Another mystery to many banks is the automation levels of distributed capture points. Managed Recognition can be utilized to help solve this management issue.

2013, 2014, 2015… the future of straight-through-processing of checks remains an elusive target for many banks. However, improvements in technology, along with strong market forces for cost-effective pricing models, now deliver exceptional tangible and intangible value with immediate savings in a wide range of workflows.

For more information on available check recognition solutions, visit our website at orbograph.com. The OrboGraph knowledge center is also a good resource for a more in-depth dive into industry topics.