The Deal on MICR Presentment

Do you want to save time and money? Do you want to improve your operation's efficiency? Do you want to free up your staff and equipment for other processing jobs? If your answer to these questions is a resounding YES, you should be taking advantage of the Federal Reserve's MICR Presentment service.

The Fed's MICR Presentment service gives financial institutions earlier access to information by electronically capturing and delivering the full MICR line for all items in your incoming cash letter. The Fed captures this data and sends the information to you in machine-readable format via electronic transmission.

MICR Presentment offers many benefits, including earlier access to information from incoming cash letters, earlier posting of items, reduced exposure to bad checks, elimination of the capture run on your sorters, as well as reduced maintenance costs and extended life of your equipment.

Here's why some of the Eighth District's customers are using this service.

"MICR Presentment saves us a lot of time--usually at least one hour of proof work per day," says Darla Lohman, assistant cashier and accounting department supervisor at the Bradford National Bank in Greenville, Ill. "The staff really like it and haven't had any problems at all. We think it's a good service and, comparatively, it's not any more expensive to use MICR Presentment."

MICR Presentment offers competitive advantages, as well. Randy Moyer, executive vice president at First State Bank of Conway in Conway, Ark., says, "Prior to receiving the Electronic Check Presentment file, we were not able to compete with the larger financial institutions in our market that offered cash management services. By combining our ECP and ACH files, we're now able to offer those services to our corporate customers and level the playing field with our competitors."

Not only does MICR Presentment pay off in the long run, but it's easy to implement and maintain. "The service has been well received by our staff," according to John J. Lee, president of First Independent Bank in Aurora, Mo. "Transition was smooth, and it is not more expensive for the bank. Employees feel like 30 to 45 minutes are saved each day in proof machine time. Our entire staff likes the product, and no problems have been encountered."

And then there's the issue of improved reliability that an electronic transmission of data brings. "Before we began MICR presentment of our Fed Letter, we were anxiously awaiting the arrival of the courier each day," says Deborah Bowling, administrative vice president of First American National Bank in Iuka, Miss. "On a good day we would receive our letter by 12:30 p.m. If there were any traffic delays or foul weather, it might be 2 p.m., sometimes 3 p.m., or not at all! We now pull in our letter when FedLine® is brought up each morning. We normally have our letter pulled in and memo posted before 10 a.m. If the managers and CSRs know when something is in process, they can make better determinations when checks are presented for cash at the window."

Last month, Fed customers not currently using MICR Presentment received a promotional brochure. The brochure offered a no-obligation, cost-free analysis, as well as a free one-month trial. It's not too late to take advantage of this deal. Just contact the Customer Consultant for your zone, listed on the back page of this issue.