Demand from corporate clients?combined with a deadline that's only five months away–is a major factor pushing banks into check imaging, according to a top executive with one major supplier of check-processing software. Although many banks are poised to begin accepting so-called image replacement documents when the Check Clearing for the …

The criminal activity known as phishing soared to new heights last month, according to statistics released today by the Anti-Phishing Working Group. The consortium of Internet companies and law-enforcement agencies reported that the number of unique phishing incidents recorded by the group rose 180% to 1,125 in April, more than …

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 …

Fiserv Inc. expects to do a major business in the new substitute check instrument that has been created by the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act (Check 21)?so much so that it is entering into agreements with a software company and an air carrier to deliver and process potentially …

Recent industry statistics paint a grim picture of how pervasive spam, and with it e-mail fraud, is becoming in the U.S. transaction economy. Brightmail Inc., a San Francisco-based provider of anti-spam software, reports that the volume of spam hit 64% of some 96 billion e-mail messages its systems filtered in …

Digency Inc. is within a month of signing its first clients for tests of a new system it has developed that fights e-commerce fraud by pinpointing Web users' geographic location, according to Ed R. Starrs, chief executive of the El Dorado Hills, Calif.-based e-commerce processor. Dubbed “Geocate,” the product has …

A new national survey of debit card holders indicates a significant portion of consumers would be inclined to punish retailers and banks if they imposed fees or tried to restrict the range of accepted payment products. When asked how they would react if a merchant no longer accepted their debit …

Metavante Corp. announced today it has agreed to buy Advanced Financial Solutions Inc., an Oklahama City-based company specializing in check-processing technology and owner of the Endpoint Exchange, a network that routes electronic check images among processors and financial institutions. No price was announced, though Metavante officials said this acquisition, in …

More evidence of the possible damage being done by phishing to e-commerce emerged in survey results released today by technology research firm Gartner Inc., Stamford, Conn. The survey, which was completed last month and canvassed 5,000 adult Web users, indicates that 30 million users think they have definitely been a …

CheckClear LLC, which owns and operates what is so far the only national image-exchange network in operation for check processing, announced today it is planning to connect to an image exchange being built by the Federal Reserve. It also said it has made an agreement to connect to imaging equipment …