Paris-based Atos Origin is offering French banks an integrated cheque digitisation solution, from reception and back office processing to storage, as the nation's financial institutions changeover to cheque-imaging technology.
The company is also currently managing the arrival of euro bank notes and coins for several leading French banks.
Christian Huguet, president of Atos Origin's customer management services business in France, says: "Our 17 processing centers are now fully organised to collect, digitise, process and store cheques. This business is a logical extension of our innovative Oasis digitised image processing solution, introduced a few years ago."
France’s decision to introduce cheque imaging means that the bank of the remitter (e.g. the merchant) will create and send an electronic image of the cheque, rather than the actual paper cheque, to the bank of the the customer for payment, via the country’s SIT electronic interbank settlement system. The remitter’s bank is thus responsible for storing both the physical and electronic cheques and for handling any disputes between the two parties.
Atos Origin says its end-to-end document-processing solution has the capacity to store the roughly one billion customer cheques processed every year. Both physical and virtual cheques are stored as long as legally required.
As part of the package, Atos Origin also delivers new back office services, including unsettled account processing, document searches, and requests for originals and photocopies.