North America Bytes

Sovereign Bancorp has installed Return Items Control System (RICS) Image from Fiserv to increase its back office productivity and generate additional revenue.

Sovereign's main objective in implementing RICS Image was the consolidation of its mid-Atlantic accounts to its New England center. Prior to implementing RICS, the center would receive and process the mid-Atlantic items a day behind. RICS Image helps Sovereign accelerate the processing of returned checks the same day via a remote capture of return items, which allows the bank to process the returns without a need for the physical checks.

"We still receive the physical items the next day," said Donna Campbell, senior operations manager of Sovereign Bank. "However, being able to process the items and debit customer accounts the same day has helped us significantly. We are looking forward to implementing RICS in our New England facilities this year as well."

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Sterling Financial Corporation, a $1.8 billion multi-bank holding company located in Lancaster, Pa., and U of C Federal Credit Union, a $400 million credit union based in Boulder Colo., will convert to Corillian Voyager Special Edition (SE) to provide enhanced online banking services to their customers and members.

Sterling Financial will replace the Fiserv Internet banking platform with Corillian Voyager SE to provide its retail and small business customers with real-time online access to all of their financial accounts to reconcile account balances, transfer funds and pay bills. Also, customers will have the ability to personalize their financial information through Corillian Personalization Manager, and aggregate all of their financial information into one view through Corillian OneSource Register. The Corillian Business Finance Suite will give Sterling Financial's small business customers more options in managing their business finances.

"We were looking for a solution that could help us expand the functionality of our online offering to both our retail and small business customers," said Kathy Phillips, senior vice president and chief technology officer of Sterling Financial Corporation. "With Corillian's Voyager SE we will be able to significantly enhance our offering with innovative and easy-to-use services that we feel will be of tremendous value to our customers."

U of C Federal Credit Union chose Corillian Voyager SE to give its more than 64,000 members enhanced Internet banking and bill payment services, and provide integration with the Open Financial Exchange (OFX) data standard to allow members real-time access to their financial information through personal finance management software like Intuit's Quicken and Microsoft Money. "We were looking for an Internet banking solution that would offer our members new and innovative online banking services and provide access to all of their financial information with a single sign-on," said Bill Sterner, president and CEO of U of C Federal Credit Union.

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GMAC-RFC has approved eValu, a hybrid property valuation product, to fill the gap between AVMs and full appraisals on second mortgage fundings.

Offering lower cost and faster turn time than drive-by's and full appraisals, eValu provides greater coverage and more reliably accurate estimates than fully automated AVMs. eValu delivers USPAP compliant valuation for under $100 in one business day - in a paperless, all web process.

"eValu employs the knowledge of local market appraisers, but maintains the objectivity of AVMs," said Brian Broomfield, director of modeling and analysis at GMAC-RFC. "In addition, it can work in areas where the underlying public record data do not allow for the use of an AVM."