CheckFree Streamlines Check Conversion with New Back Office Conversion Solution

CheckFree Corporation today introduced a new module, CheckFree® PEP+® reACH/BOC, that will enable banks to streamline the process of check conversion for their corporate customers. The new module will enable organizations to support NACHA’s new Back Office Conversion (BOC) Standard Entry Class Code, which goes into effect on March 16, 2007. Back Office Conversion aligns Check 21 and Automated Clearing House (ACH) processing to facilitate best-path routing decisions on many checks presented at the point of sale.

Growth in the BOC sector is expected to be significant in the near future, with estimates that market adoption will reach three billion back-office conversions in the next five years, delivering a five-year net benefit to the banking industry of $320 million, according to the National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA) – The Electronic Payments Association.

With BOC rules incorporated into CheckFree’s PEP+ reACH/BOC solution, financial institutions can now convert eligible checks presented at the point of sale to ACH transactions for deposit. This streamlined approach reduces costs associated with items deposited through image exchange and those printed as Image Replacement Documents (IRDs), while increasing ACH origination.

“CheckFree’s goal, as embodied in our Applied Operational Intelligence(SM) approach, is to continually deliver innovation to our customers in response to growing marketplace needs and ever-changing regulations,” said Esther Pigg, vice president of global product management for CheckFree Software. “As a result, we can increase the value of the ACH processing and check conversion solutions that customers already have in place from CheckFree. CheckFree’s new PEP+ reACH/BOC module strategically positions our customers for current and future check conversion initiatives with the secure, proven and scalable PEP+ reACH infrastructure, and further aligns check, Check 21 and ACH processing.”

To help corporate merchants and retailers accomplish these business objectives, CheckFree’s PEP+ reACH/BOC module provides several key capabilities, including:

• Leveraging proven end-to-end check conversion capabilities and architecture of the leading Accounts Receivable Conversion solution, PEP+ reACH.
• Integrating NACHA requirements for BOC to enable high conversion rates with low administrative return rates and rapid, superior decisioning results.
• Integrating BOC rules into the PEP+ reACH application programming interface (API) to allow a bank’s transaction routing engine to identify and convert eligible BOC items to ACH.
• Providing an enhanced Electronic Remittance File format to allow ACH eligible BOC transactions to interface with PEP+ reACH, designed to ensure timely and accurate processing of eligible BOC transactions within PEP+.
• Integrating BOC transaction schemes in PEP+ reACH to reflect actual Financial Institution transaction activity, minimizing returns and enabling the correction of parsing errors.