Electronic Clearing House (Echo) has added Columbia Bank to its list of financial institutions participating in Visa USA's pilot Point-of-Sale (POS) cheque service.
Visa's POS service allows merchants to receive online authorisation for paper cheques by converting them into electronic transactions.
Under the agreement, cheques from Columbia Bank will be routed through Echo's automated clearing house (ACH) processing system. Any cheques written against non-member banks will be verified using its NCN cheque writer database.
Joel Barry, chairman and CEO of Echo says: "Using Visa's national network system and Echo's infrastructure, Columbia Bank will be able to offer its merchant customers the ability to accept cheques with confidence, while significantly reducing cheque handling expense."