Carreker
Corporation Press Release - August
4, 2003
CARREKER ANNOUNCES CUSTOMIZED
CHECK 21 READINESS PROGRAM
DALLAS (August 4, 2003) — Carreker
Corporation (Nasdaq: CANI), a leading
provider of consulting and technology
solutions for the financial services
industry, today announced a comprehensive
Check 21 Readiness Program for
financial institutions and payment
processors, complementing the company’s
technology roadmap for Check 21.
Check 21 (also known as the Check
Truncation Act of 2003) facilitates
the exchange of images instead
of paper checks by permitting banks
to truncate checks and substitute
image replacement documents. It
will drive considerable change
as banks adapt their processes,
platforms, and technology to accommodate
an increasingly imaged-based environment.
Carreker’s Check 21 Readiness
Program, already under way with
selected banks, is designed to
help clients realize their Check
21-related opportunities and minimize
the risks. It is launched with
a two-day, bank-customized, on-site
Check 21 Readiness Workshop, with
specialized modules for operations,
products, customer service, risk
management, and lines of business.
In the workshop, clients come
to a swift understanding of their
readiness and can identify their
areas of greatest risk, competitive
opportunity, and operational needs.
The workshop leads to a business-case-based
strategic plan for Check-21-related
initiatives, and the program culminates
in the execution of the plan in
good time for Check 21.
A key feature of the program is
rapid execution. Said Carolyn Coughlin,
senior vice president, North American
Item Processing, Harris Bank, “There’s
no doubt that Check 21 is going
to improve the way we do some very
important functions. Still, we
wanted to use this opportunity
to make additional changes that
will serve our payments customers
well into the future. Being able
to do that quickly and in a cost-effective
manner is very important to us.”
The Program is a service of Carreker’s
recently organized Global Payments
Consulting (GPC) division and is
being delivered by the company’s
top consultants in operations,
technology, image processing, and
fraud mitigation. Said Nancy Langer,
president of GPC, “I’m
not aware of any greater value
we could conceivably bring our
clients in the next few months
than this Program. Whether they
are thoroughly aware of Check 21’s
urgent and vast implications, or
sometimes mistakenly complacent
about their readiness, we are finding
high value for our ability to help
them plan and budget for bankwide
requirements.”
Added Langer, “After our
first workshop, our clients said, ‘Now
we feel ready to mount a concerted
response with an informed budget.
Before, we were looking at a disaggregate
set of uncertainties.’ Unlike
other industry events organized
around this topic, ours is bank-customized,
so it reaches deeply into the areas
where Check 21 will play out either
favorably or unfavorably for the
client: product groups and business
lines.”
Check 21 has passed the U.S. House
of Representatives and Senate in
different versions; passage of
a combined version is expected
in the coming months, with the
law expected to take effect in
2004. Banking leaders consider
the legislation to be among the
most significant since the Monetary
Control Act of 1980, and to portend
more change for payment operations
than the introduction of MICR (magnetic
image character recognition) encoding
on checks.
J.D. (Denny) Carreker, chairman
and CEO of Carreker Corporation,
said, “Check 21 affects every
financial institution in the country – banks
large and small, credit unions,
brokerages, processors, and so
on. It offers profound opportunity
for banks that adapt quickly, and
significant risk for others. That
is why we are also pleased to provide
our clients with strategic and
tactical advisory services in the
form of this Check 21 Readiness
Program, in addition to our integrated
suite of image processing technology
that Check 21 will entail.”
Carreker’s GPC division
consists of three consulting practices:
Payments Strategy and Modeling,
Image Technology and Operations
Planning (offering the Check 21
Readiness Program), and Fraud Risk
and Mitigation.
Carreker Corporation has the leading
footprint in the image processing
technology space that is being
reinforced by Check 21: Approximately
60 percent of check images archived
today by the top 50 banks in North
America are stored by Carreker
applications, either at individual
banks or in shared archives. The
company offers the only image-enabled
back office suite (for exceptions,
adjustments, and return items,
with a research offering in the
works) and a number of image-enabled
fraud mitigation applications,
recently announced the first application
in its image quality assurance
suite, and is creating an image
exchange system compatible with
its electronic check presentment
solution, CheckLink®.
For more information about Carreker’s
Check 21 Readiness Program, go
to http://www.carreker.com/Check-21.html or
contact Steve Hill, Managing Principal,
Carreker Corporation, at 508.485.2283, shill@carreker.com.
About Carreker Corporation
Carreker Corporation improves earnings
for financial institutions around
the world. The company’s
integrated consulting and software
solutions are designed to increase
clients’ revenues and reduce
their expenses, while improving
security and increasing the value
of their customer relationships.
Carreker provides products and
services to more than 250 clients
in the United States, Canada,
the United Kingdom, Ireland,
Australia and South Africa. Clients
include the full range of community,
regional and large banks, among
them more than 75 of the largest
100 banks in the United States.
Headquartered in Dallas, Texas,
since 1978, Carreker Corporation
also has offices located around
the world including London and
Sydney. For more information,
visit www.carreker.com.