LogicaCMG's HotScan product is the leading watch-list filtering solution with 40% of the world's largest banks as customers and installations in four continents. In France, in order to comply with the French CRBF 2002-01 "check auditing" ruling, LogicaCMG partnered with A2iA to optimize its AML (anti-money-laundering) offerings. These solutions deliver real business benefit, reducing fraud and ensuring compliance with international regulations.

A2iA Corp., a worldwide leading developer of natural handwriting and print recognition technology (OCR, ICR, IWR, OMR) is integrating its A2iA CheckReader solution, so that fraudulent transactions and laundering can be spotted by verifying checks against various blacklists.

LogicaCMG has been dealing with numerous filtering and behavioral-analysis issues and the new partnership with A2iA gives them a complete offering that effectively meets the requirements of changing legislation.

A2iA CheckReader reads checks to make sure that compulsory fields - amounts, payee name, date, and signature - are properly filled in, and then recognizes amounts (CAR + LAR), the name of the payee, and the address block. This information is forwarded to LogicaCMG's filtering solution, which then compares the fields recognized by A2iA CheckReader, the payee name and the address block, against official blacklists (maintained by GAFI, OFAC, and the "Journal Officiel", among others) and internal blacklists, which are maintained by customers.

"Today's tougher legislation requires all financial institutions such as banks, stock exchanges, insurers, credit institutions, and others, to audit check transactions," said Thierry Siouffi, chief executive officer of LogicaCMG in France. "Their audits are currently done manually, meaning that processing costs are high and capacities are inadequate. Automating this function boosts the efficiency and relevance of check audits and increases processing volumes. Integrating A2iA CheckReader into our AML offer gives us a complete anti-laundering solution."

"Our expertise in accurately locating and capturing written information from checks allows A2iA and LogicaCMG to provide banks with a cost-effective technology that automatically helps combat fraud and money laundering," said Jean-Louis Fages, chief executive officer & president of A2iA Corp. "French banks are now able to accurately comply with the CRBF 2002-01 "check auditing" ruling. Thanks to LogicaCMG's presence in global banking markets, we hope to adapt this solution to the needs of financial institutions around the world."