The Clearing House kicked off the iClearing and Settlement (iC&S) project in February 2001 with the full commitment of its owner banks: The Bank of New York, ABN Amro, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank One, JP Morgan Chase, Wachovia, and Fleet. The overall goal of the iC&S project is to facilitate the automation of electronic payment and remittance information from payment origination (accounts payable) to account posting (accounts receivable).
In attempting to achieve this goal, The Clearing House took a research-based approach to get a better understanding of why businesses are not using electronic payments and remittances more, as well as, how the various players in the B2B value chain are effecting and/or influencing the payment process. This paper offers a summary account of that research.
The first feature, or Phase I of iC&S, was the development of the Universal Payment Identification Code (UPIC), a unique number assigned to a company's bank account, which masks confidential banking information while facilitating electronic payments.
The Clearing House began the requirements definition effort for Phase II on 1 October, 2001. For six months, extensive research regarding current business practices and processes for electronic transactions was conducted concluding in early March 2002.
The preliminary findings and conclusions relating to these activities are presented in subsequent sections of this document.

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