"Viewpointe's aim is to help complete the 'last mile' in image exchanging by making it easier for financial institutions of any size to get connected with an image exchange network," said Diane Scott, chief sales, marketing and product officer/chief strategy officer of Viewpointe. "From within the industry, we frequently hear that financial institutions not using image exchange want to start doing so, but they are struggling to find ways to do so with what are very often limited financial and human resources. This new Internet connectivity option provides an easier, more economical way to get involved and reduces the demands on financial institutions' internal resources."

Financial institutions with annual electronic check volumes of up to 75 million can now have cost-effective access to Viewpointe's proven, robust Pointe2Pointe image exchange service. Organizations can easily and securely connect with exchange partners via software that is already widely used by many financial institutions to conduct file transfers. Internet connectivity also gives financial institutions the option to send settlement entries to PaymentsNation in an automated fashion - all through the same connection - making the process simpler, faster and more efficient. The fee structure is also designed to encourage participation; there are no implementation fees and transactions are priced per item based on actual usage.

"Financial institutions today are looking for methods to reduce the cost of in-house resources and telecom spending while streamlining settlement opportunities wherever possible," said Nancy Atkinson, senior analyst at Aite Group. "Internet connectivity is a strong option for image-enabled banks to quickly begin image exchange and gain rapid access to exchange partners in the Viewpointe network."