The banks, which chose to guard their identities for now, bring to eight the number of UK and Irish banks using Carreker's fraud detection solutions. These include Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks, p.l.c.

When these latest two banks deploy FraudLink, approximately 350 million cheques a year in the UK and Ireland will be protected by FraudLink, which is also used by more than 120 financial institutions around the world.

Thomas G. Gordon, senior vice president, Risk Solutions Group, Carreker, said, "We are pleased that these latest banks selected our software with its advanced analytics as the best system for protecting their banks. Fraud is a crime of opportunity, and these banks have chosen to close that window of opportunity with proven solutions for protecting their capital, their customers, and their reputations."

J.D. (Denny) Carreker, chairman and chief executive officer of Carreker Corporation said, "These latest agreements confirm our standing as the overwhelming international leader in cheque fraud detection. As the paper to electronic payments evolution continues, we continue to design and develop solutions to help banks manage their evolving payments risk."

FraudLink uses advanced analytics of cheque-writing and deposit behaviour to identify potentially counterfeit or fraudulent cheques. FraudLink On-Us is a mainframe system that inspects cheques taken by tellers. FraudLink PC is a PC-based solution that provides similar protections for banks with smaller cheque volumes. FraudLink users typically realise return on investment in six to twelve months, reducing fraud losses by as much as euro 400,000 a month, depending on the bank's cheque volumes.

As fraud of all types escalates, attempted cheque fraud is a growing challenge for banks even while cheque usage as a percent of payments declines. According to the Association for Payments Clearing Service, cheque counterfeiting and fraudulent alteration of amount and payee details are increasing substantially. Additionally, as banks in the UK and Ireland aggressively tackle card-related fraud via a chip/pin-based system, fraudsters can be expected to target other payment methods such as cheques and cross- border payments.