Retail lockbox - the processing of consumer payments - is now available in all six of Mellon Enterprise's Retail lockbox sites - Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Pittsburgh.

As the Check 21 era nears, companies with a strong consumer customer base will be turning to their cash management providers to take over payment processing responsibilities, Mellon believes. A combination of declining check volumes (which drive up processing costs-per-item), more affordable electronic clearing options and new investments requiring significant capital investments will push companies from industries such as insurance, mortgage, telephone, cable and healthcare to strongly consider outsourcing.

"Consumer receivables can generate significant fee-based and net interest revenues for banks' cash management departments," said Robert W. Stasik, executive vice president and head of Mellon GCM, a treasury services business of Mellon Financial Corporation. "Mellon's state-of-the-art solution provides banks with a competitive advantage through a nationwide network of collection locations equipped with the treasury industry's best imaging capabilities, specially trained processors who work multiple shifts and identical processes and equipment to promote consistent, high-quality service at all sites."

Businesses best suited for retail lockbox processing include those that receive a minimum of 15,000 consumer payments per month, with 90 percent or more received with optical character recognition (OCR) scannable documents, and 80 percent or more single check/single document matched payments. Service benefits include minimized float with maximized funds availability; efficient, high quality processing and access to a robust image offering (web, CD and transmission).

Mellon GCM provides a full range of cash management outsourcing solutions to small, mid-sized and large financial institutions through its Enterprise business unit. Available services include wholesale and retail lockbox, controlled disbursement, positive pay, account reconciliation, data exchange, electronic cash management information reporting, wire transfer and ACH origination. Banks that private label/outsource cash management services can realize the benefits of significant fee-based revenues, while avoiding considerable capital investments.