As check volumes continue to decline, Fiserv is seeing an increased interest in outsourcing by financial institutions that no longer want to invest capital in item processing hardware and software. "Our 2006 sales results were excellent. We have a number of new services for branch capture, remote deposit and check fraud that really took off last year. We also had more in-house institutions looking for outsourcing. That, coupled with our fast-growing clearing services through the Fiserv Clearing Network, added up to an excellent year, something we anticipate will continue in 2007," said Mark Damico, president of Item Processing Services at Fiserv.

When the conversion is complete at the end of February, Fiserv will process approximately two million POD (proof of deposit) items each month for United Bank out of Fiserv centers in Charleston, W. Va.; Columbia, Md.; Pittsburgh, Pa. and Cincinnati, Ohio.

Services will include full image and item processing services using CAR/LAR technology (courtesy amount recognition and legal amount recognition). In addition, United Bank will use Fiserv for customer statements and image archive via the ImageStream National Archive, the image archive with the largest number of financial institutions in the nation. The bank is a long-time client of Fiserv SourceOne for account processing services and also uses solutions from Fiserv Imagesoft and IPS-Sendero.

With the decreasing volume of checks, United Bank saw an opportunity to leverage two decades of successful Fiserv partnership to include item processing. "We do not wish to chase technology for check processing," said Ken Greear, executive vice president United Bank. "With the opportunities Check 21 brings both now and in the future, Fiserv has provided alternatives for the services we need, at an attractive price. It made sense to outsource that function rather than invest more capital. A nice bonus was that many employees on our IP staff were given positions in the Fiserv center."

United Bank continues to investigate adding other Fiserv products and services, Greear said. "Our partnership with Fiserv for banking services has proven to be an asset to our institution," he said.