Commerce Bank's goal is to implement a complete image exchange infrastructure to facilitate image exchange in a consistent manner regardless of input source. The project will include design, development, implementation and support of all products and enhancements.

"We realized that the final approval of Check 21 and the resulting decline in check volumes offers the opportunity to develop new revenue streams, while reducing operating expenses," stated Mike Spafford, senior vice president, Commerce Bank. "Because changes represent both risk and reward, we chose to partner with Software Earnings and IBM for a proven, highly reliable and scalable infrastructure to meet the requirements of the new Check 21 environment today and into the future."

Along with the implementation of IBM's Payments Director Gateway and IQA products, Software Earnings will provide a fully integrated complimentary suite of image exchange enhancement applications. These include Enterprise Image Solutions' (EIS) Image Reject Repair, Virtual Reject Capture, and Virtual Testing System; OnTrac, a file monitoring solution to track, log and route inbound and out bound data and/or image files; and Enterprise Transaction Suite (ETS) to automate Balancing, Cash Letter and Settlement.

"Software Earnings and IBM are uniquely positioned to provide a comprehensive solution to meet Commerce Bank's objective of a single platform that will support all its check processing requirements," stated Don Samuels, executive vice president, Software Earnings.