Hampden Bank Chooses Teller Capture from Andrew Tilbury on Vimeo.

This video shows Hampden Bank’s success with using tMagic, the joint Teller Capture solution created by Open Solutions and Bluepoint Solutions.

Bank leverages Software as a Service model to provide customers convenient, secure home/office deposit capabilities

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, today announced that Oswego, Ill.-based Allied First Bank selected ImagePoint Remote, a consumer deposit capture platform. The bank will market the solution as QwikDeposit Home to its customers.

Allied First Bank has approximately $160 million in assets and more than 9000 customers. The bank is leveraging Bluepoint’s unique Software as a Service (SaaS) model to offer its customers a sophisticated and convenient capture solution, without the initial upfront capital expenditures associated with traditional technology implementations. The consumer capture solution will be integrated with the bank’s existing Internet banking provider, enabling customers to upload check images with the click of a button within the existing online banking portal. Customers can now easily make deposits from home or office with the use of a computer, a secure Internet connection and a scanner.

Once captured, the images will be hosted in Bluepoint’s secure data processing center, where item perfection and correction will be performed. Using the SaaS model, the bank gains access to a secure central repository of the captured images, significantly reducing and simplifying the research process. An aggregate X9.37 file will then be submitted to Allied First Bank according to the bank’s preferred delivery schedule.

“Years ago, we began as a credit union for employees of one of the nation’s largest airlines,” Andy Hardin, Vice President of Operations & Marketing at Allied First said.  “Today, we’re a retail banking organization, but our customers are still living and working all over the globe.  ImagePoint Remote is the next step in our strategy to leverage innovation and technology to offer the highest levels of security, access and control to our customers and the growing numbers of consumers who are reevaluating their primary banking relationships.”

“We are looking forward to working with Allied to implement a customer-facing solution that will not only add value to the existing customer-base, but will give the bank a competitive advantage in the market to attract new customers,” said Hal Tilbury, president and CEO for Bluepoint Solutions. “As an early adopter of the consumer capture solution, Allied is showcasing its commitment to advanced technology and offering innovative products to better serve its customers. Our consumer capture solution is designed to help banks like Allied provide better service, but more importantly, grow deposit accounts. By taking advantage of Bluepoint’s pay-as-you-go model, as well as the greater processing power found in an off-site, Bluepoint-managed application, Allied is poised for success with a very nominal investment. The ROI is almost immediate in this type of scenario.”

Originally appeared in Credit Union Business Magazine: November/December 2009

Founder and CEO of Bluepoint Solutions, Hal Tilbury, provides his thoughts on how remote deposit capture, particularly home and merchant capture can provide a valuable service to credit union’s business members. Besides relieving the tellers and reducing the need for ATMs, merchant capture can be a valuable tool to attract business members and drive growth in the credit union. To view the entire article, download here.

Credit union maintains investment in teller capture, receipt manager and enterprise content management platforms; adds consumer capture and disaster recovery
VISTA, Calif.–Summit Credit Union today announced a five-year renewal contract with Bluepoint Solutions. The credit union will continue its use of Bluepoint’s teller capture, receipt manager and enterprise content management products. Also, the credit union added Bluepoint’s disaster recovery services. Bluepoint Solutions is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and leading innovator in remote deposit capture (RDC), image-based item processing and enterprise content management software technology for financial institutions.
Summit Credit Union is based in Greensboro, N.C. with seven branches, approximately $130 million in assets and more than 21,000 members. The credit union has been a Bluepoint customer since 2005 and saved more than $50,000 per year by eliminating a cumbersome research process and increasing workflow efficiencies via the automation. By capturing documents at the point of presentment, the Bluepoint solution immediately reduced keystrokes and human error and significantly reduced the amount of paper used in processing.
The CEO of Summit Credit Union, Sam Whitehurst, said, “The Bluepoint products have been instrumental in helping our credit union continue to grow and offer superior member service. Through the efficiencies we’ve gained, our staff is able to focus on meeting the diverse needs of our members by offering personalized products and services. Expanding our partnership with Bluepoint was an easy decision. We truly feel they’re invested in our success, and they are a solid business partner we can count on now and well on into the future.”
Summit Credit Union uses a sophisticated content management and remote deposit capture strategy leveraging the following Bluepoint products: ImagePoint Teller Capture, Receipt Manager, ImagePoint Consumer Capture, and its member-centric Enterprise Content Management platform. ImagePoint Teller captures checks real-time, at the point of presentment improving operational efficiencies, cost savings, fraud prevention and the overall member experience. Receipt Manager integrates with the existing teller transaction flow, storing the receipt data electronically and making it available to authorized users throughout the entire credit union. Bluepoint’s Enterprise Content Management platform integrates with ImagePoint Teller and Receipt Manager to provide a flexible, member-centric file system to manage all scanned and imported documents electronically, and create valuable reporting tools to analyze and review member data. The credit union has also recently implemented Bluepoint’s consumer capture solution, ImagePoint Remote, providing members with the convenience of depositing checks anytime, from any location.
“We’ve been very pleased with the results and the continued support we receive from the Bluepoint team of professionals,” said Whitehurst. “We are very happy to add the disaster recovery solution. This will allow us to comply with regulatory requirements for reporting and data storage and provide assurance that if a disaster occurs, our members will not be impacted by data loss or operations interruptions. ”
“We are pleased to extend and expand our relationship with Summit and look forward to working with them for years to come,” said founder and CEO of Bluepoint Solutions, Hal Tilbury. “We understand the challenges facing credit unions and the fierce competition in today’s market. As a result, we continue to invest in our technology to ensure our clients are using modern, sophisticated solutions to operate efficiently and effectively. Our renewal rates remain year over year above 98 percent.”
About Summit Credit Union
Summit Credit Union is a not-for-profit financial cooperative wholly owned, operated, and governed by its members. Our operational scope depends solely on the ideas, concerns, and desires of member owners, as the membership’s well being and the credit union’s well being are interdependent. Summit Credit Union’s guiding principles of “people helping people” and “for service, not for profit” is necessitated by our very structure, and is thereby not optional. Media Contact: Sam Whitehurst, direct: 336-662-6250 or swhitehurst@summitcu.org.
About Bluepoint Solutions
Vista, Calif.-based Bluepoint Solutions is a leading innovator in remote deposit capture (RDC), image-based item processing, enterprise content 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.

Originally Appeared in American Banker: Jan. 26, 2010
Hampden Bank has partnered with Open Solutions and Bluepoint Solutions to install the providers’ jointly-developed check imaging system, tMagic Teller Capture, at the teller windows. Hampden Bank’s senior vice president, Sheryl Shinn, spoke with American Banker about how shortening the line of tellers for branch capture scanners, thereby reducing teller overtime at the end of the day, helped persuade the bank to make the switch. She went on to describe additional benefits of savings on outsourcing, increased per-item deposit fee income and improved customer service. Dave Reim, product manager in Open Solutions’ imaging systems unit, added that these efficiencies are available because the tMagic system connects directly to Hampden’s core processing software.  See American Banker for the full story.

Appeared in Credit Union Journal: Jan. 18, 2010

Bluepoint Solutions makes its teller capture and receipt processing product suites available in a rental program, helping financial institutions leverage technology without making large capital expenditures. Click here to view the article in its entirety (requires subscription).

Is There Any Steak Behind the Sizzle?

By Andrew Tilbury

When home capture first hit the market, it generated considerable buzz among credit union executives.  Several salient questions emerged from the discussion.  Would home capture evolve into a wide-spread technology or would it remain a niche product?  Would fraud be so significant as to make the application pointless?  Would anyone use it once it was offered?  And, most importantly, would it be a good fit for my credit union’s members?

In the Fall of 2009, Bluepoint Solutions conducted an in-depth study focused on credit unions and remote deposit capture solutions.  We took a random sampling of credit unions with assets ranging from $100 million to $1 billion and asked what remote capture points of presentment they were currently using and what plans they had for implementing home capture.  Over 200 credit unions participated in our study and the results shed light on the future of home capture.

52% of the respondents surveyed indicated that they had a remote capture solution in place:  63% use branch capture, 20% use teller, and 9% use ATM capture.  Only 4% use merchant capture and another 4% use home capture.  This indicates that remote deposit capture is at the beginning of its life cycle.  As credit union executives realize the efficiencies they can gain by capturing check images at the first possible point of presentment, there will be a steady increase in the use of remote deposit capture solutions.

When asked about future plans for implementing home capture, 42% of the respondents said they already had initiatives in place to offer home capture.  Another 46% were exploring it, but had not yet decided whether they would ultimately proceed with installation.  Considering the high amount of interest in home capture, credit unions should, at the very least, take a serious look at home capture and ask whether or not it is a service that will appeal to their members.

Convenience for Your Members, Growth for Your Credit Union
It is clear that credit unions see an industry-wide movement toward home capture, but why is the technology so appealing to end-users?  The overarching reason is convenience.  Home capture eliminates trips to the branch or the ATM, working around branch hours and holidays, waiting in line at the branch, and finding an ATM.  Customers like the flexibility of making deposits any time, from any place.

In addition to the benefits to consumers, home capture has significant benefits for credit unions.  Take Digital Federal Credit Union as an example.  They launched their home capture solution “PC Deposit” in March 2008, and within a year had 15% of their member base sign up for the service.  They receive about 9,000 deposits per month totaling about $13.5 million.  This has created an entirely new channel for receiving deposits from members.1   Another good example is USAA.  After they launched their home capture application “Deposit@Home” in 2005, they experienced a near-doubling of their deposit growth.2  Both of these examples show the dramatic and positive impact that home capture can have on a credit union’s growth strategy.  Both of these show how a credit union can use this technology not only to fulfill a demand from their members, but also to increase deposits, retain existing members, and attract more members.

Risky Business?
It sometimes seems that the newer the technology, the more prevalent the fraud associated with it.  However, with home capture, this is not the case.  There are established risk mitigation strategies in place that credit unions can effectively use to reduce instances of fraud.

The first strategy is to apply know-your-customer (KYC) best practices.  Many credit unions use KYC techniques to identify various groups within their membership who are their low-risk customers.  This is typically done with a combination of criteria such as age of account, overall member relationship, history of returned items, and general account history.  You can apply these standards to segment your members and then offer home capture as a premium service to select members.

In addition to KYC methods, a viable home capture solution must have integrated fraud mitigation that includes duplicate detection and CAR/LAR validation.  This is done by using a single, real-time database for all deposited items, regardless of the original point-of-presentment.  Using a combination of a KYC, duplicate detection, and CAR/LAR validation, you can create a robust system for mitigating fraud that covers all points of presentment, including home capture.

Is Home Capture the Right Fit for Your Members?
How will you know if your membership will respond well to home capture?  There are a few key indicators that will give you a glimpse of potential adoption rates.  Are your members spread over a wide geographic area?  Do they typically live a long distance from a branch?  Do you receive a disproportionately large amount of deposits in the mail?  Do your members frequently use online banking, bill pay, and mobile banking?  Is your membership based on a certain occupation that requires them to be mobile or move frequently?  Does your typical member fit a younger, technologically savvy demographic profile?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you should closely examine implementing a home capture solution.   If not, you run the risk of missing a major opportunity to provide a valuable service to your members, and this could create a service gap that could be filled by a competing financial institution.

Licensing vs. Outsourcing
Even after applying relevant business cases, there may still be uncertainty surrounding the projected adoption rates of home capture among consumers.  This has made credit union executives and boards reluctant to invest in a technology with no proven track record.

One way to address this challenge is to outsource home capture to a third party provider.  This software-as-a-service model eliminates the upfront cost of licenses and takes the strain off of your IT department.  This allows you to bring home capture to market quickly and test the response among your membership.  It is a pay-as-you-go model that typically involves a nominal setup cost and a small per-item processing fee.  However, if you are confident that your members will respond positively to home capture, licensing is probably the better option.  The upfront costs will be higher, but, in the long run, your credit union will benefit from full-ownership of the technology and lower per-item processing costs.

Final Thought
Evaluating home capture for your membership is a simple but essential process.  You must first decide if your credit union’s members will respond to the technology and, second, if you can use it as an effective tool in your marketing and growth strategy to prevent members from defecting to other institutions and also using it to attract new members.  The one thing you cannot do is ignore it.

Originally published by Callahan & Associates in Technology@CU, 3Q09

Originally appeared on Remotedepositcapture.com: Dec. 9, 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 ImagePoint, an end-to-end image-based check clearing solution designed to help financial institutions of all sizes better manage item processing. To view the entire announcement as reported by Remotedepositcapture.com, click here.

Originally Appeared in Credit Union Journal: Dec. 21, 2009
During the 2009 BAI Retail Delivery Conference and Expo., Bluepoint Solutions’ Chief Marketing Officer, Dick Drew, sat down with Credit Union Journal’s Editor-in-Chief, Frank Diekman to discuss the state of consumer capture and opportunities afforded to credit unions as banks continue to focus on merchant capture.

– 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.