NORTH AMERICA BYTES

Comerica Bank, Detroit, has launched Comerica GlobalTRADE WebK, an Internet business offering that simplifies international trade by enabling businesses to create and send import and standby letters of credit applications online.

The service is available at the bank's website www.comerica.com

Using industry standard Web browsers, "GlobalTRADE Web provides businesses with state-of-the-art security and point-and-click convenience," said Warren Shifferd, senior vice president and officer-in-charge of International Trade Services for Comerica. "It is a user-friendly, Internet-based system that verifies the accuracy of data and offers change recommendations before letter of credit is sent to our bank for processing. The result is improved accuracy and control for our customers."

The systems also allows customer to initiate transactions and determine the status of letter of credit applications 24 hours a day, seven days a week from anywhere in the world, and without having to install any software.

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AmSouth Bank, Birmingham, Ala., has selected a data feed and search engine from Hot Neuron LLC, Bryn Mawr, Pa., to power its online business library.

The engine, called MagPortal.com(SM), provides categorized magazine article links and summaries along with a full-text search engine, allowing the bank's customers to easily find information about market trends, human resources, financing, e-commerce, management strategies and specific industries. The library is located at www.amsouth.com.

"Small Businesses need to get more done in less time, and as they turn to the Web for help, AmSouth is committed to meeting their ever-changing needs with products like this," said Brett Couch, head of AmSouth Business Banking.

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National City Corporation Cleveland, will use products from three different vendors to create a remittance processing and image archive solution for its Cleveland and Chicago Accounts Receivable Centers.

The bank will utilize Lanham, Md.-based ImageScan's RemitTrac payment processing platform to provide its clients with accounts receivable check, invoice and document images and data capture. The new iTran series of image transports from NCR will be used for remittance processing. The OnBase image archive and delivery solution from Hyland Software, Cleveland, will provide immediate access and viewing of archived checks and document images.

"We are very excited and believe this significant investment in technology meets the growing needs of our traditional paper-based lockbox clients and future clients," said Mary Ann Francis, senior vice president of Corporate Banking Business solutions for National City.