The bank says its new Global Advice service gives corporations an effective way to deliver both payment and detailed payment advice information to all of their trading partners electronically - regardless of the trading partner's size or technological sophistication.

Corporate-to-corporate payments often include detailed information which is truncated by electronic payment systems such as Fedwire. Bank of America's Global Advice service is aimed at enabling corporates to deliver this detail to non-EDI-compatible trading partners over the Web.

The information may be downloaded from the Web in a common format that can be used by trading partners to automatically update their accounts receivable systems, says the bank. The service features pro-active e-mail notification to trading partners of incoming payments information and has the ability to aggregate all payment information for trading partners doing business with multiple Bank of America clients. Future enhancements will include payroll, travel and expense reimbursement information to employees and explanation of benefits information for health care providers receiving payments from health care insurers.

This month, WellPoint Health Networks will begin using Global Advice with the bank's payments outsourcing services to convert a portion of its cheques to electronic payments. Under the agreement, WellPoint will route detailed payment advice information to a bank-hosted Web site where it can be accessed by Wellpoint's trading partners.

Jerl Rossi, director, cash management from WellPoint Health Networks comments: "We are attempting to transition paper-based functions within our company to those that deliver data in electronic format wherever possible. The Bank of America Global Advice programme helps us explore those possibilities. Coupled with a funds transfer application, the transaction becomes completely electronic."

John Feldman, director, US & Canada product management for global treasury services at Bank of America adds that the service supports both US and international payments and "meets the needs of US multinationals and of almost any company entering the global markets of e-commerce."