The Clearing House has announced that it is seeing accelerating usage of Universal Payment Identification Codes (UPICs) by public and private sector entities across the U.S. UPIC payments have grown to a record $4 billion in the third quarter of 2008, up 61% compared to the same period a year ago. A UPIC is used for credit payments only and thus lowers the possibility of unauthorized debits, checks and demand drafts. The UPIC was developed by the Electronic Payments Network (EPN), the ACH business of The Clearing House, in conjunction with the financial services industry. READ MORE »

The Clearing House Payments Company has announced that "UPIC payments soared in 2006, as a record number of companies, government agencies and universities began receiving secure electronic payments via the unique bank account identifier."

The Electronic Payments Network (EPN), the ACH business of The Clearing House Payments Company L.L.C., has announced that the number of UPIC payments increased tenfold to 47,700 through the first three quarters of 2006, compared to the same period a year ago. Institutions now issuing UPICs include Citibank, Commerce Bank, HSBC Bank, JPMorgan Chase, M&T Bank, Mellon, PNC, State Bank of Long Island, Sterling National Bank, Union Bank of California, USBank and Wachovia Bank.

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.