Bank of America is to make digital cheque images available to customers at its bank branches in Georgia.
Branch teller staff in Georgia will be able to instantly retrieve cheque images from their desktop computers, says the bank, significantly reducing the three day waiting time which customers typically endure for paper-based retrieval and photocopying.
The bank says the new technology also gives customers and employees additional fraud detection capabilities as signatures can be verified immediately by comparing them against picture-perfect digital images on cancelled cheques.
Bank of America has so far installed imaging technology in seven cheque processing centres and says it will complete the coast-to-coast implementation at all 22 centres by year-end. Currently, the bank processes and clears more than 40 million cheques and cheque-related items such as deposit tickets each day. With the new imaging technology, these items will be captured by digital cameras and stored at Viewpointe Archive Services where they can be accessed if requested.
Viewpointe was established by Bank of America, JPMorganChase and IBM last year. It is expected that industry cheque processing costs will be reduced by as much as 30 percent when the archiving service is fully implemented.
By 2002, the bank says digital cheque images will be available at branches nationwide. Customers also will be able to view digital images of their cheques through online banking at bankofamerica.com.