This strategic partnership will allow their joint customers to gain real-time insight into the complete check image life cycle - from internal bank processes to clearing and settlement.

Clearing checks through the exchange of image cash letters (ICLs) brings greater efficiencies to the financial services industry but also creates new challenges in the areas of file validation and reconciliation. Jointly, the offering addresses circumstances in which financial institutions lack the end-to-end validation that ICLs were processed and delivered to the paying bank, or arrived at the receiving bank, as intended and on schedule. Existing bank controls may be reactionary, inspection-oriented, labor intensive and error prone.

Systar's Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) software provides banks with real-time performance insight into the complex internal processes that support check image exchange, enabling them to anticipate and address operational issues before business impact. By incorporating information from the Viewpointe check image exchange network in Systar BAM dashboards, these capabilities can be extended beyond internal processes and into the clearing and settlement system. Banks can now proactively address potential issues, such as missing or delayed files, through real-time monitoring, automated detection and alerts.

The benefits of this partnership will first be delivered through a joint customer pilot program with one of the world's largest financial institutions, allowing that bank to test the effectiveness of Viewpointe messages automatically ingested into the Systar BAM product for operational needs.

Jointly, Systar and Viewpointe will enable customer banks to take full advantage of the rich information provided by Viewpointe's check image exchange.

"This partnership offers customers on the Viewpointe network enhancements to their existing clearing and settlement information and true interoperability between our network and our customer's vendors," said Glenn Wheeler, president, Viewpointe Clearing, Settlement & Associations Services. "In a sense, we are able to provide a new value-added service by presenting information in the format many customers already use to monitor internal processing performance."

The joint offering improves automation of the clearing and settlement process and also reduces or eliminates any potential "dropped" ICL files or missed deadlines, which commonly plagues the industry.

"We are excited to partner with Viewpointe, a recognized leader in the financial services industry," said John Lopynski, vice president of strategic alliances, Systar. "By adding Viewpointe information to our check image BAM solution, we will provide tremendous value to
our joint customers through proactive monitoring that extends beyond bank boundaries."