"In preparation for Truncation and Electronic Check Presentment (TECP), Canada's equivalent to Check 21, one of our top priorities is to have a solution in place that mitigates our risk exposure, protects our customer's privacy, and ensures document integrity -- by not only analyzing an image for quality, but also for usability both in our current and future image exchange environment," said Wayne Martin, Symcor's senior vice president, Technology Services. "Carreker's Image Inspector will allow us to meet these objectives and further improve efficiencies as we capitalize on imaging technology."

Image Inspector uses Carreker's advanced image recognition technology and sophisticated detection routines to analyze and flag low quality items for repair. The product is designed to ensure the integrity of check and payment document images and verify their readability for financial institutions. It analyzes these images to determine if they are of good quality and that key information such as the payee name, legal amount, courtesy amount, and signature are present and readable. Image Inspector can also identify missing images and conditions where the MICR in the image does not match the item transaction data.

Symcor plans to implement Carreker's Image Inspector solution in two phases. The first phase will migrate the Carreker Document Repair solution to Image Inspector, which will provide enhanced suspect identification and reporting capabilities. The second phase will integrate the solution into Symcor's image exchange environment and introduce Image Inspector's image replacement scanning function.

"The first phase of our implementation will allow us to improve our current image suspect review capabilities. The introduction of rescanning as part of the second phase will provide us with a true end-to-end workflow for analyzing an image's quality, usability, and MICR integrity, and if necessary, the capability to replace bad images with those of acceptable quality," added Martin.

Mike Ringuette, EVP, Payments Solutions, Carreker Corporation, said, "Symcor continues emerging as a leader just as the Canadian financial services market prepares for the transition from paper to imaging. Their selection of Image Inspector provides them with the ability to ensure that they capitalize on the benefits of image exchange with an enterprise-wide platform that allows for consistent measures of image quality across all points of presentment."

J.D. (Denny) Carreker, chairman and CEO, Carreker, said, "We're delighted that we can build upon our strong partnership with Symcor by helping them as they prepare to leverage the many opportunities that TECP will offer. Image quality and integrity are sure to be at the top of most banks' lists of concerns as they transition to an electronic, image-enabled environment. This will only increase the demand for our Image Inspector solution