Originally Appeared in Digital Transactions: Jan. 1, 2010

Bluepoint Solutions’ Chief Marketing Officer, Dick Drew comments on cloud computing architecture, stating that cloud computing will enable “many financial companies to get the benefits without making the capital investment.”  Click here to view the article in its entirety.

– Point-to-Point, Image-Based Item Processing –

VISTA, Calif. Dec. 09, 2009. Bluepoint Solutions, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and leading innovator in remote deposit capture (RDC), image-based item processing and electronic document management software technology for financial institutions, announced the availability of ImagePointâ„¢, an end-to-end image-based check clearing solution designed to help financial institutions of all sizes better manage item processing.

The ImagePoint platform is composed of three integrated product families: ImagePoint Capture for remote capture of items, ImagePoint Hub for aggregation and forward presentment of items and ImagePoint Foundation for central item processing functions and image exchange. ImagePoint products may be used separately or together providing a complete end-to-end solution from the earliest point of presentment, to full “Day Two” processing for inclearings, returns and a full, feature-rich permanent archive for storage and research. The modular nature of the ImagePoint platform allows institutions to install as many or few modules as needed. Additionally, the solution will scale to support the smallest institutions, to large-scale enterprise-wide installations.

Currently in use at more than 1,000 financial institutions nationwide, ImagePoint Capture products enable financial institutions to electronically capture checks, from multiple presentment points including the teller window, centralized branch locations, consumers’ homes, merchant locations and ATMs. The solutions are core agnostic and easily integrate with both mainstream and homegrown core data processing platforms. ImagePoint Teller is verified as Citrix Ready®, making it one of the only RDC solutions in the market that easily integrates into a Citrix environment.

The ImagePoint Hub product family is designed to aggregate the captured images and data in a sophisticated, centralized, intuitive filing structure, regardless of the initial capture point, and present the items to payment processing systems. Optional modules of ImagePoint Hub include central MICR corrections, duplicate MICR detection, fraud alerts and archiving. A key component of the ImagePoint Hub product family is its central administration module that provides sophisticated administration and research of the system.

The ImagePoint Foundation central item processing product family may receive captured items from ImagePoint Hub or other item capture systems. Additional items may be captured centrally using high-speed capture devices and processed using ImagePoint’s sophisticated data perfection and balancing tools. Captured items are routed for processing using sophisticated sort pattern tools, correction modules, returns workflows, posting interfaces to core platforms and archive into its robust archive module. ImagePoint Foundation is also capable of maintaining a direct image exchange network for same day clearings between multiple participating institutions.

“With ImagePoint, Bluepoint presents a contemporary, updated alternative to the current product offerings in the payment processing market,” said Hal Tilbury, president and CEO of Bluepoint Solutions. “Most of the products in the market are written on old technology and rely on cumbersome processes to capture and process images. ImagePoint is one of the only platforms that is based on modern, yet proven, technology from the earliest point of presentment to the final item processing/image exchange stage. Institutions deploying ImagePoint will experience significant cost savings, both in terms of the time saved and the reduction in processing fees.”

ImagePoint can be deployed as an in-house or SaaS data center model, depending on the financial institution’s specific needs and requirements. Built on a Microsoft.NET platform, Bluepoint is able to take advantage of industry standard capabilities and leverage future advances. Additionally, the .NET framework’s supporting architecture allowed Bluepoint Solutions to develop a Shared Application Framework (SAF), providing one source code for all products for common functions such as security, printing controls and single-sign on capability.

Fortune Favors the Brave & Those Who Lead through Offense-Defense Strategies

by Hal Tilbury, President & CEO of Bluepoint Solutions

Community based financial institutions are looking for ways to improve and/or maintain margins.  One approach is to grow deposits, but a more promising method is to focus on cost-reduction areas. One area is the institution’s electronic document management system. Thousands of institutions are saddled with first-generation document management systems.  These legacy systems may have initially helped reduce paper, but are now labor intensive with centralized scanning and manual indexing. This older technology can lead to input errors of up to three percent, which are time-consuming, expensive, and lead to poor customer service.

For example, how often does your institution receive an electronic document, print it and then scan it into the document management system?  Second-generation document management systems that follow proven best practices streamline this traditionally cumbersome process.  Such a system reduces costs, improves employee productivity and customer service.  Maintaining digital documents in a digital format, such as receipts, e-mail messages, Word documents, statements and reports significantly increase employee productivity.

Re-engineering business processes from a centralized scanning model to a decentralized model, where documents are captured at the point of presentment, reduces errors, costs and lost data.   Using this method, documents are available in the most active time of a document’s life: the first 24 to 48 hours.  How many secondary file systems live within your institution while documents are sent to the centralized scanning department?

Additionally, best practices dictate checks should be captured as early in the process as possible.  Both consumers and businesses can now use RDC (remote deposit capture) to digitize checks in a convenient self-service manner, reducing branch traffic.  Institutions that capture items at the teller window reduce overtime courier costs and are able to more quickly catch fraudulent items.

Bluepoint’s document management technology is based on best practices. We have developed an industry-leading next generation document management system utilizing Microsoft technology.  SharePoint, SQL, Windows are all critical components of the overall system that will reduce cost and improve margin.  A simple document management assessment will determine if you are a candidate to improve your margin through the use of a second generation document management system.

Reduce Costs at Every Step in the Process

To continue to receive the benefits of efficiency and cost saving created by these strategies, don’t forget to do everything possible to make the entire system easy for people to learn and use and easy for your IT department to maintain.

Simplify all user interfaces and make them straightforward to use, with hot-keys, mouse functions, clear layouts, and other tools used by GUI designers.

Finally, consider the ease with which your IT department and its contractors can respond to user questions, make minor changes and regular upgrades, and administer remotely.

Bypassing Human Error Eliminates a Huge Time-Waster

With increased volumes of document images being performed by employees across an institution, the potential exists for human error in the way documents are indexed. Every such error short-circuits the speed and ease of data retrieval and produces cumulative downstream errors.

Consistency is the basic principle of file indexing. Select a document management system that reads the documents you enter and has the intelligence to index them automatically. Indexes are captured directly from the core processor and applied to entire document, preventing lost documents, facilitating research and enhancing the service levels you offer your clients.

(This is the fifth strategy in a six-part series.  Check back each Friday for a new strategy to boost cost-efficiency in Financial Institutions.)

Logical Structuring of Information Dramatically Improves Customer Servicemand Efficiency

Does your call center still require your customers or members to wait for 24 hours to gain access to the transaction? Does a teller need to consult records in two, three or more places to process the transaction or to answer a question about it later? When the auditors arrive, how easily can you give them access to the records they need?

A robust document management system puts everything related to an account or an account-holder in one place. Once you have reduced extra paper, captured incoming paper documents electronically, and expanded your electronic document system to handle all types of documents, you are poised to organize this information in a logical structure that facilitates research and retrieval of records.

The way you use records “by account-holder” is the most logical way to store and manage information. With everything related to that customer or member in virtual folders, any document can be located right where it’s supposed to be instead of somewhere in a growing database with longer and longer search times. Record and transaction integrity is complete.

(This is the fourth strategy in a six-part series.  Check back each Friday for a new strategy to boost cost-efficiency in Financial Institutions.)

Partnership with Garda Cash Logistics provides accelerated funds availability

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 05, 2009 – Bluepoint Solutions, innovator in Check 21 capture, remote deposit capture (RDC) and image-based item processing, announced during the Annual AFP Conference in San Francisco the availability of image-based cash vault processing, including image capture and image exchange of deposits and payments. Bluepoint’s long-standing partnership with Garda Cash Logistics, America’s premium provider and a subsidiary of Garda World Security Corporation, (TSX:GW) (Garda), one of the most trusted cash logistics, physical security and global risk consulting firms in the world, continues to provide advanced cash logistics services to financial executives nationwide.

The enactment of the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act, “Check 21″ provided a significant opportunity to leverage remote image capture and image exchange technology to accelerate the deposit capture process from receipt through posting all from one of the earliest points of presentment, the vault. Following an extensive evaluation period, Garda partnered with California-based Bluepoint Solutions to implement a full suite of electronic, image-based vault solutions.

“With the advent of Check 21, we realized we could offer our clients a cost-effective solution to help expand their footprints and reduce costs,” said Patricia Marr, Vice President of Product Management at Garda. “By expanding our existing vault services to include image-based cash logistic services, our clients can effectively capture and exchange images received through Garda’s vault network, significantly accelerating deposit capture, posting and presentment. Working with Bluepoint, vaults can now be accessed electronically.”

Working with Bluepoint, Garda’s virtual vaults have the capability to immediately scan, process and balance mixed deposits of both cash and check documents. In addition to check processing, Bluepoint supports the image capture of paper tickets used to issue credit for cash deposits or cash adjustments, giving Garda the ability to provide direct billing data to banks. Garda’s centralized deposit balancing process captures, truncates, balances and adjusts check deposits for each of its customers. Check images are then formatted as X9.37 files for posting or bank-to-bank image exchange. Managed in an ASP environment, Bluepoint manages and corrects any exceptions to immediately adjust and balance the received deposit. Within the vault checks are scanned and the images are sent to Bluepoint’s centralized server where items are repaired if needed and then immediately balanced. The consolidation of the check processing in an ASP environment enables highly trained personnel to manage this functionality, enabling the vaults to stay in balance.

“In today’s uncertain financial environment, a bank cannot afford to lose sight of its core competencies, growing its deposit base and improving customer service,” said Hal Tilbury, president and CEO of Bluepoint Solutions.  “Garda’s image-based virtual vault solution enables financial institutions to increase funds availability, expand geographically and more accurately manage deposits, all without adding additional resources. Specifically, this service helps banks attract and better serve commercial customers.”

About Bluepoint Solutions

Vista, Calif.-based Bluepoint Solutions is a leading innovator in remote deposit capture (RDC), image-based item processing, electronic document management and receipt management. Adhering to strict best practice standards, Bluepoint delivers proven technology solutions and consulting services designed to achieve the strategic goals of increased employee productivity, reduced operating costs and improved customer service. Bluepoint’s family of products and services offer a complete, end-to-end, image-based item capture and payment processing solution. For more information, visit www.bluepointsolutions.com.

Instant Document Capture Starts the Savings at the Point of Presentment

Imaging the documents you receive, transforming paper to electronic files, is where the savings start. It’s where many banks and credit unions have chosen as a starting point in streamlining their document management systems, and for good reason. Industry statistics show the majority of any paper document’s usefulness occurs during the first 24-48 hours after you receive it. Reduce costs during that interval and you affect your overall costs of doing business.

Moving away from centralized scanning operations to instant image capture makes documents and check images immediately available to any authorized employee, enterprise-wide. You no longer need duplicate copies at branch locations, because there is no lapse between receiving the original and having access to it both locally and centrally. And decentralized remote deposit capture is not limited to branches, but can be extended to ATMs, merchant locations or directly to consumers over secure Internet connections, which results in dramatically reduced float and branch traffic.

To the benefits of lower cost and faster access, add the elimination of physical document loss, a non- trivial ongoing headache that results in both poor customer service and wasted time for employees.

(This is the third strategy in a six-part series. Click here to see all past strategies. Check back each Friday for a new strategy to boost cost-efficiency in Financial Institutions.)

Comprehensive EDM Reduces More Than Paper

The more you are able to consolidate document storage and retrieval, the more efficiency gains you will make. Consolidating document storage means putting multiple file types from multiple sources into one database.

It also means keeping everything related to a transaction together. Consider the common practices of separating paper documents related to a simple transaction, perhaps a deposit with cash withdrawal at a teller window. Checks go here, deposit and cash tickets go there, receipts are generated, copied and put somewhere else, IDs, signature cards and even fingerprints are consulted, checks are batched for imaging and courier transport at the end of the day. The integrity of the transaction records is lost immediately. Now consider the downstream processes associated with clearing, retrieving and auditing transactions, and multiply by thousands.

Opportunities in this scenario for reducing costs, reducing errors, and reducing paper are easy to spot. A comprehensive EDM system will place all types of information in one place, including images of paper you receive, documents you generate, audio clips from your call center, and so on.
Staff time and overtime will probably be the biggest type of savings from this strategy. But even costs of clearing items can be reduced, perhaps significantly reduced, by transmitting image files for clearing multiple times per day.

(This is the second strategy in a six-part series.  The first strategy is Create Less Paper.  Check back each Friday for a new strategy to boost cost-efficiency in Financial Institutions.)

It’s Right for Operations, and Right for the Environment

“Paperless” offices have been a dream of automation experts for fifty years now. Today there is a new urgency about using paper wisely, not only to lower operating costs but to protect our precious natural resources.
Current practices for handling a newly-created document typically include printing it, perhaps with multiple copies, and then scanning it for electronic storage. Why not eliminate the printing step altogether and store it immediately? Loan documents, teller receipts, new account forms, COLD documents are just a few examples of documents that can be imported electronically without ever printing them on paper.

The more forms and other types of paper documents your electronic document management (EDM) system handles, the more you can reduce your budgets for supplies, labor, equipment, and storage space. Recent studies are starting to show the real cost of paper-based systems. It is eye-opening to consider not just the cost of the paper itself, but the cost of buying it, storing supplies of it, generating and copying it, employee time handling it through multiple processes, moving it, filing and keeping it, losing and finding it.

When institutions implement or upgrade even part of their processes, case study after case study shows the savings are many times the cost of the technology they deploy.

How does paper reduction affect customer service? Think of the delays that are reduced or eliminated by streamlining the processing of all that paperwork, from shorter teller lines to faster responses to customer service queries. And when a paper document is needed, a good EDM can produce that paper when and where the consumer wants it.

(This is the first strategy in a six-part series.  Check back each Friday for a new strategy to boost cost-efficiency in Financial Institutions.)