The Federal Reserve Banks (FRBs) and The Clearing House Payments Company (TCH) have announced plans to implement enhanced message formats to accommodate both cover payments and payments containing business remittance information on their respective U.S. dollar wire transfer systems, the Fedwire® Funds Service and CHIPS.   » Continue Reading

We mentioned earlier this week that Forte Financial's Erin McCune was in Las Vegas this week - not for the ETA Expo but for the TAWPI Payments in Transition Conference. TAWPI = The Association for Work Process Improvements - "a professional membership association dedicated to providing education, advocacy and networking opportunities for practitioners and technology and service providers in payments automation, distributed capture, and imaging & forms processing."

Erin's done a superb job of blogging her notes from the conference sessions - and the association has done a great job as well of providing downloadable copies of the conference presentations!

Forte Financial's Erin McCune is blogging from this week's TAWPI Payments in Transition Conference in Las Vegas. TAWPI = The Association for Work Process Improvement.

The Association for Financial Professionals reports results from its 2008 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey concluding that" "payments fraud continues to challenge treasury and finance professionals, with almost one third of respondents to a new AFP survey reporting that incidents of fraud increased in 2007 compared to 2006."   » Continue Reading

Glenbrook, in cooperation with Forte Financial just finished our first Payments Workshop on B2B payments, called "eB2B Payments at the Tipping Point".   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced that it has "extended its Foreign Exchange Online service to small businesses. This service allows businesses to send and receive foreign currency wires in more than 90 currencies using an internet connection."   » Continue Reading

The latest issue of Dove Consulting's On Payments newletter is now available. Articles include "Migrating Small Business Invoice Payments from Paper to Plastic" and "Implications of the 2007 Federal Reserve Payments Study Results" .

JPMorgan has announced that it has enhanced its Web-based accounts receivable management application, Receivables Edge, to automatically match open invoice records to bank captured payments and remittance detail, including checks, ACH and wire transfers.   » Continue Reading

Richard Gamble writes for Treasury & RIsk Magazine about purchasing cards and a shift in how they're being used that improves their effectiveness. Gamble writes "for years, banks marketed purchasing cards as a stand-alone product that worked best when a company could get as many suppliers as possible to accept it." But suppliers often balked at participating, leading to only partial success. Instead, Gamble reports that the "next generation of payments automation will have “a single user interface on the front end, but four pipes on the back end” that will deliver payments by card, check, ACH or wire."

After years of slow progress, business-to-business (B2B) payment conversion from check to electronics is accelerating. Significant new product developments and announcements from MasterCard, American Express, JPMorgan Chase and others, as well as developments in the use of ACH and wire payments, are contributing to a new sense of urgency in this enormous marketplace.

Glenbrook is taking its popular Payments Boot Camp format and applying it to the subject of B2B payments. The new workshop, called "eB2B Payments At The Tipping Point" will be an intense, two day workshop covering both the "basics" (how A/P and A/R interface with payments, how paper and core electronic B2B payments work) and the wide array of new products and services that are addressing this opportunity.   » Continue Reading

Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson recently returned from the Association of Financial Professionals Conference in Boston - where she explored the relative progress being made in the migration of business to business (B2B) payments from paper checks to electronic payments. She shares her insights in "eB2B at the Tipping Point?" - now available over on the Glenbrook web site.

Purepay, a $100 million buyout fund focused on payments, banking and the financial supply chain, has announced that it has acquired a controlling interest in Netvantage, a remittance processing software provider focused in the middle market commercial customer.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard Worldwide and First Data Corp. have announced that "First Data will make the MasterCard Payment Gateway available to its network of 3.5 million merchant locations throughout the United States."   » Continue Reading

MasterCard has announced the MasterCard Payment Gateway - calling it "a flexible enterprise-wide payment processing platform for routing commercial payments between buyers, suppliers and their financial institutions." According to MasterCard, the gateway "gives companies a streamlined total payables solution designed to increase productivity and profits with enhanced security, while simplifying the entire payments process."   » Continue Reading

Naureen Malik writes for the Wall St. Journal about how TicketNetwork migrated away from billing its customers via credit card to using the ACH instead - saving money in the process and reducing customer service hassles and costs associated with dealing with expiring card account numbers, etc. The company still accepts credit cards for dealing with individuals.

Experian has announced the launch of BusinessCreditFacts.com, a new online resource designed to help small-business owners gain a greater understanding of the many topics dealing with business credit, such as the importance of business credit and tips for establishing and improving business credit scores.   » Continue Reading

Visa USA, Visa International and Arcaneo have announced a "strategic alliance aimed at helping companies integrate commercial payment cards with enterprise meetings management technologies. Both organizations are working together to create solutions that provide businesses with the information they need to accurately manage meeting expenses and assess their return on investment."   » Continue Reading

JPMorgan Chase has announced a new report titled “Controlling and Cutting Travel & Entertainment Costs” that examines how "some of the nation’s leading companies share cost- and time-saving steps that they have taken to maximize their travel program and help minimize the impact of rising business travel costs."   » Continue Reading

CashEdge has announced that "CashEdge usage data for online payment, invoicing and collections during 2006 and through the first quarter of 2007, reflects the growth in adoption that was predicted by BAI's Small Business Payment Strategies research study in 2006, Aite Group's April 2006 survey of small businesses, and CashEdge's 2006 Small Business Survey. In June 2006, Bank of America became the first U.S. bank to offer electronic invoicing presentment and payment (EIPP) to small-business customers (through its Online Business Suite) and reports that the service has been extremely successful."   » Continue Reading

Aite Group has published a new report titled "Top Trends in U.S. Corporate Cash Management: Strategies for a New Environment" that "explores the top trends that are currently shaping the U.S. cash management space and the strategies that are being implemented by the largest global players, down to the smallest community banks."   » Continue Reading

Visa USA has released a "detailed analysis revealing key insights into how U.S. businesses large and small are spending their money. The Visa Commercial Consumption Expenditure™ (CCE) Index for 2006 analyzes government data sources and research methods to provide a useful assessment of business expenditures."   » Continue Reading

Mercator Advisory Group has published a new report titled "Purchasing Cards, Integrated Procurement Solutions, and the Commercial Card Market" that "examines new levels of sophistication in the domestic commercial credit space with respect to purchasing card programs, and supporting solutions such as Electronic Invoice Presentation and Payment (EIPP).   » Continue Reading

U.S. Bank Government Services has announced that it is one of four issuers selected to participate in the General Services Administration (GSA) SmartPay 2 program for commercial charge cards and related payment services.   » Continue Reading

Transcepta has announced an Internet-based electronic invoicing community that brings trading partners together – a place where buyers and vendors find common ground to process invoices free from the everyday constraints of paper and rigid computing systems.   » Continue Reading

Visa International has announced results from a recent global survey titled, "Global Commercial Payment Cards: Cutting Costs and Boosting Control on a Global Stage" that finds "companies worldwide primarily implement corporate card programs for enhanced visibility into spend (nearly 70 percent), and that the number one priority for companies around the world for implementing purchasing card (P-card) programs is reducing administrative costs for transaction processing (86 percent), but the goals and growth drivers for the programs differ by region."   » Continue Reading

Mercator Advisory Group has announced the availability of a new report titled "U.S. B2B Payments: State of the Market." According to Mercator, this report "delivers a B2B payments growth forecast, an overview of Business-to-Business (B2B) payments, how businesses communicate their payments and information, major payments network basics, and leading bank processors."   » Continue Reading

American Express has begun marketing two new corporate purchasing solutions as part of its expanding S2S (Source-to-Settle) product suite. The company has announced S2S Contract Audit & Recovery and S2S Catalog Pro, which it says are "designed to help companies optimize performance, drive savings and increase control and compliance in their supply chains."   » Continue Reading

AOC Solutions has announced that "Commerce Bank has selected its Encompass technology to meet the unique needs of the bank’s Purchase, Fleet and Travel Card customers. Encompass is redefining the commercial card market and offering businesses more ways to integrate card payments into their purchasing and payables systems."   » Continue Reading

Cyndia Zwahlen reports for the Los Angeles Times about how credit card companies are focusing on increasing the payment card usage of small businesses - saying that "Although small-business owners spent $4.9 trillion in 2006, less than 5% of that was with the aid of a credit or debit card, according to Visa USA research."

JPMorgan Chase Bank and Xign Corporation have announced that "they have signed an Agreement and Plan of Merger whereby Xign, a leading provider of business-to-business on-demand financial settlement solutions, will be acquired and combined with the Commercial Card and Procurement businesses of JPMorgan Chase’s Treasury Services unit. Under the Agreement and Plan of Merger, JPMorgan Chase will acquire all of the capital stock of Xign, as well as the company’s technology, services and Order-to-Pay domain expertise. The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of 2007, subject to regulatory approval. Terms have not been disclosed."   » Continue Reading

TowerGroup has published new research concluding that "financial institutions offering wholesale banking as a line of business to corporations currently face unrelenting pressure from clients to improve their integration technology services."   » Continue Reading

Fifth Third Bank's Treasury Management division has announced a strategic relationship with Revenue Management Solutions (RMS), a medical payment and remittance system provider.   » Continue Reading

Reuters is reporting that Travelex is acquiring business-to-business payments provider Reusch International for $440 million and merging it into Travelex's Commercial Foreign Exchange division.

Visa has released results from a new global survey finding about 25 percent of companies plan to increase their use of corporate payment cards and decrease their reliance on checks in the near future. According to Visa, these companies "believe that corporate payment cards will reduce costs and enable greater cash flow management as a result of more transparent financial data for payables and receivables."   » Continue Reading

Visa has released its global Commercial Consumption Expenditure (CCE) measurement for 2006. "Using the CCE index, a standardized metric to track business and government spending globally, Visa Commercial calculates global CCE in 2006 to be US$66.7 trillion, which represents an increase of 8.0 percent over 2005 expenditures of US $61.8 trillion."   » Continue Reading

Opportunities still exist for small businesses to grow, despite an overall slowdown in the economy, according to Wayne Best, senior vice president of Business and Economic Analysis for Visa USA. According to Visa, "Best struck a note of cautious optimism in his keynote presentation at the Microsoft Small Business Summit, based on his analysis of macroeconomic trends, Visa spending data and small business studies."   » Continue Reading

Dove Consulting has released results of its 2006/2007 Study of Small Business Payment Preferences concluding that payments are a critical issue for small businesses. The study was sponsored by CheckFree, Discover, First Data Corporation, and NEACH.   » Continue Reading

According to a payments fraud study (PDF) released by the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP), a majority of organizations are victims of payments fraud and the incidence of fraud continues to climb. Nearly three-quarters of organizations experienced attempted or actual payments fraud in 2006, up from 68 percent reported in 2005.   » Continue Reading

Glenbrook's Bryan Derman attended yesterday’s briefing in New York by American Express on its new B2B commerce solution and had an opportunity to speak directly with a few of the executives involved. Here's his report on this new service.   » Continue Reading

American Express has announced S2SSM eInvoice&Pay, calling it "the first fully integrated Electronic Invoice Presentment and Payment (EIPP) solution. With S2S eInvoice&Pay, companies can now process 100% of their invoices and issue payments to their suppliers from a single online portal managed by American Express."   » Continue Reading

National City Global Treasury Management has announced "Corporate Remote Capture, an e-commerce solution with robust capabilities that provides the bank's business clients with a convenient, electronic way to manage check collections at their location and eliminate branch visits to make deposits."   » Continue Reading

Celent has published a new report, Standards: The Pony Express to e-Payments that discusses advances made in developing payment-related standards for commercial/wholesale payments.

SunTrust Banks has announced the re-branding of its treasury management division to SunTrust Treasury & Payment Solutions. According to the bank, the new name is "in line with a shift in the marketplace, where corporate treasury departments are expanding in scope and often contributing significantly to corporate strategy and decision-making."   » Continue Reading

Xign has announced a partnership with Comdata to promote MasterCard e-P3 powered by Xign. According to the two companies, the first Comdata-Xign customer, U.S. Xpress Enterprises based in Chattanooga, TN, is using the Xign-powered electronic payment solution to expand its corporate payment card program to include accounts payable spend.   » Continue Reading

The Aite Group has published a new report titled "Converging Wire Transfer and Automated Clearing House (ACH) to Revolutionize U.S. Electronic Wholesale Payments" that concludes the US payments industry could save $7 billion annually if the two systems were converged into a single electronic system. According to Aite, "converging the wire transfer and ACH systems will provide optimum payments capabilities and services, significant cost savings, and revenue-generating opportunities."

Glenbrook's Carol Coye Benson had been initially skeptical about Intuit's recent announcement to acquire Digital Insight - as she says "after all, banks have had a long and somewhat rocky road with Intuit over the years and some seem to still have very mixed feelings about their basic value proposition." But Carol has recently become convinced that the new Intuit/Digital Insight business combination could provide some very real value to a bank's small business customers.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard Worldwide and Ariba have announced an agreement "to enhance payment solutions for companies around the world. Under this agreement, Ariba and MasterCard will connect enhanced transaction data from the MasterCard global data repository with Ariba Supplier Network, resulting in integration of purchasing and corporate card programs available for companies globally."   » Continue Reading

Aite Group has published a new report title "Small-Business Banking: The Value Proposition for Banks to Offer Small-Business EIPP" that "evaluates the size of the EIPP opportunity for U.S. banks and builds a case for banks to offer the service."   » Continue Reading

American Express has announced that it is launching a suite of source-to-settle electronic solutions named S2S designed to help companies drive greater levels of cost savings while improving control and compliance requirements. Amex claims this combination will leverage its commercial card business with its procurement capabilities. American Express also announced it will acquire Harbor Payments, an Atlanta-based technology provider that delivers e-invoice and e-payment capabilities.   » Continue Reading

Karen Kroll writes for Business Finance Magazine about some new uses of corporate purchasing cards - including for capital expenditures and travel and entertainment expenses.

American Express has announced the American Express SimplyCash Business Card which "gives cash back on virtually all purchases and automatically delivers the rewards each month as a statement credit."   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced the launch of the Perfect Receivables service designed to "streamline and increase the security of business-to-business electronic payments." The new Treasury Management solution is available for both ACH debits and credits, offering fraud risk reduction on both. Wire transfers will be integrated into the service in the near future.   » Continue Reading

Visa USA has announced results from a recent survey concluding that 68 percent of the financial executives and cash managers surveyed plan to reduce their reliance on checks for commercial payments and that 63 percent plan to increase their use of corporate payment cards.   » Continue Reading

Wire transfer volume has the potential to grow significantly if parties involved in the wire transfer process work together to overcome current inefficiencies, according to a new study released today by The Clearing House Payments Company and the Federal Reserve Banks.   » Continue Reading

Payformance Corporation has announced that it is offering an additional level of fraud security through support of the Electronic Payment Network’s UPIC secure account identifier. A UPIC (Universal Payment Identification Code) is a unique identifier that masks the actual bank account numbers of corporate payees when electronic payments take place.   » Continue Reading

GXS has announced a managed services offering that enables financial institutions to become better integrated with their corporate clients and support a diverse range of e-commerce technologies. GXS says its Managed Services also can increase the competitiveness of a financial institution's cash management product portfolio by improving customer service quality and increasing business model flexibility.   » Continue Reading

The September 2006 edition of the First Annapolis Navigator is now available. This month's issue features articles on the U. S. Debit Industry Evolution: 1991 - 2006, Credit Card Issuing: Changes, Challenges, and Opportunities in the U.S., The Evolution of the Retail Card Sector: The Long and Winding Road, Lessons from Acquiring's Past, and the Evolution of Business-to-Business Payments.

As the payments landscape continues to evolve and corporate payments migrate from paper to electronic formats, organizations are continuing to seek greater efficiencies in the wire transfer process. In order to better understand customer demand and position the wire transfer system for potential growth in the future, the Federal Reserve Banks and The Clearing House conducted a joint research study entitled “Business to Business Wire Transfer Payments: Customer Preferences and Opportunities for Financial Institutions” (pdf). The study offers an in-depth view of the issues facing organizations that routinely make wire transfer payments and focuses on the motivations driving payment decisions as well as potential opportunities for achieving growth in wire payments.

US Bank has announced that it has begun offering a tool, U.S. Bank Access Purchase, that extends the power of its commercial card beyond payment processing and automates its entire purchase-to-pay (P2P) process. The tool connects buyers and suppliers over the Internet, allowing commercial customers to purchase and pay for goods and services from existing suppliers online, and still receive the detailed tracking information required to manage the procurement process.   » Continue Reading

VICOR has announced the findings of its first-annual Corporate Payment Progress Index (CPPI) concluding that the corporate payment industry is rapidly moving toward electronic processing of business-to-business transactions. According to VICOR, the CPPI is the first and only industry metric that quantitatively tracks and measures the overall progression of corporate payments.   » Continue Reading

Visa International has announced that the value of all purchases and cash withdrawals made with Visa Commercial payment solutions worldwide reached US$317 billion for the four quarters ended June 30, 2006, growing 24 percent year over year.   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced that, in anticipation of an upcoming rule change by NACHA, it will integrate its automated clearinghouse (ACH) and account reconciliation plan (ARP) systems to better identify and post converted business checks accurately to clients' accounts.   » Continue Reading

Aberdeen Group has announced findings from companies that participated in a recent study of payment card usage reporting significant benefits in three primary areas with their payment card program. A recently published report that benchmarks payment card usage within the enterprise found that over 60% of companies still allow personal credit cards to be used for company purchases, in spite of the compelling benefits achieved by best in class users of corporate payment card programs.   » Continue Reading

MasterCard has announced zero liability protection for small business cardholders effective September 1, 2006 along with a "Build Your Business" sweepstakes to promote its small business product offerings. MasterCard is also launching a new MasterCardBusiness.com site, "where small business owners can find further information about the "Build Your Business" promotion and zero liability protections, as well as tips on how to manage employee benefits, ways to market their businesses on a budget, and helpful money management advice."

Experian has announced the results of a new study that takes a deeper look at the makeup of small-business owners and identifies key characteristics between owners of incorporated and unincorporated microbusinesses.   » Continue Reading

Xign Corporation has announced the results of a study on the impact of Xign network validation on invoice exception processing. According to the study, the rate of problem invoice submissions falls from 1 in every 8 invoices during initial deployment (13%) to 1 in every 33 invoices by year 3 (3%). "Dirty" invoices are a leading cause of settlement delays and high processing costs as the errors are typically left undetected until after invoice data is posted for processing -- leaving the burden of exception handling and dispute resolution to the buyer.   » Continue Reading

Xign Corporation has announced Xign Network Insight that the company claims is "the first network-based benchmarking service for tracking and improving financial settlement performance."   » Continue Reading

US Bank has announced that it will purchase Schneider Payment Services (SPS), a division of Schneider National, Inc. The acquisition will in excess of $7 billion in freight payments to US Bank's PowerTrack portfolio, which the bank says will make its PowerTrack the "clear leader in freight payments."   » Continue Reading

US Bank has announced that it will purchase Schneider Payment Services (SPS), a division of Schneider National, Inc. The acquisition will in excess of $7 billion in freight payments to US Bank's PowerTrack portfolio, which the bank says will make its PowerTrack the "clear leader in freight payments."   » Continue Reading

Ben Semmes writes for the Tri-Valley Herald about Pleasanton, CA-based Xign, a business to business payment processor founded by CEO Tom Glassanos.

The Association for Financial Professionals has published a new guide titled "A Corporate Guide to Card Payments and the Role of Interchange" designed to "educate organizations about the card acceptance process and help them proactively manage and reduce transaction processing expenses."   » Continue Reading

A new issue of the Visa Quarterly has been published by Visa International spotlighting Visa's efforts in the commercial payments arena. Included is an interview with Aliza Knox, senior vice president of Visa Commercial who says "the commercial solutions division is the fastest growing area within Visa, surpassing debit in annual growth rates, with continuous growth of over 25 percent for the last five years."

Glenbrook's Jim Salters reports on Employer Direct Pay, a new service recently introduced by Wells Fargo that enables small businesses to simply and conveniently initiate ACH payments to employees, contractors, and sales agents.   » Continue Reading

CheckFree has announced CheckFree Positive Pay Accelerator, a fully integrated, real-time software module to the CheckFree ARP/SMS product, that enables financial institutions to improve operational efficiency, speed detection of fraud and provide corporate clients with the ability to prevent fraudulent payments.   » Continue Reading

HSBC's Global Transaction Banking Services has announced it will provide clients a centralized-secure payment service across Canada, the United States and Mexico. The payment service is geared toward clients that need to make payments to trading partners within North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) countries.   » Continue Reading

Small business owners are increasingly adopting and are more satisfied with business payment cards as a tool for managing their business, according to a new Visa USA survey.   » Continue Reading

Bolero and TWIST have jointly announced a cooperation agreement to help further promote momentum in the effective delivery of standards in the corporate to bank space. Under this Agreement Bolero will become a Member and Sponsor of TWIST.   » Continue Reading

The Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) has announced the results of a new survey that concludes that the majority of organizations have strong defenses in place to mitigate payments fraud and operating risk.   » Continue Reading

Andrew K. Reese writes for Supply & Demand Chain Executive on the current state of purchasing card adoption and what American Express, MasterCard, Visa and GE have in their 2006 plans for their purchasing card products.   » Continue Reading

U.S. Bank has introduced an additional level of fraud security to business customers with U.S. Bank UPIC secure account identifier, a unique identifier that masks the actual bank account numbers of business customers when electronic payments take place.   » Continue Reading

We received the following Ask Glenbrook question earlier today:

My question to you is about Remote Deposit Capture. There is a project I have to complete and you can help me in finding out by website, who has this feature is this question and how much would customers pay for this service?

Visa Commercial has released the global Commercial Consumption Expenditure (CCE) forecast for 2006 that shows steady growth in business and government spending worldwide. Using the CCE index, Visa Commercial predicts global CCE in 2006 will be US $64.8 trillion, which represents a 6.6 percent increase over 2005 estimates of US $60.8 trillion.   » Continue Reading

Bolero has announced that HypoVereinsbank (HVB) - one of the leading German banks and a member of UniCredit Group - has implemented BoleroAdvise and BoleroApply into its trade finance offering.   » Continue Reading

US Bank Voyager Fleet Systems has announced the acquisition of Advent Business Systems, Inc., based in San Mateo, Calif. Advent provides technology that is deemed to be the most powerful, comprehensive and complete accounting management systems available to the petroleum and energy product supply chain. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.   » Continue Reading