After months of preparation, the District will soon be ready to put its new systems to the test. We are in the midst of planning customer testing, one of the most critical steps of the Check Standardization project. As previously announced, this project is one of the four components of the Federal Reserve System's Check Modernization initiative.

Check Standardization involves converting the differing check processing platforms at all Reserve Banks across the country to one standard system. This initiative will introduce efficiencies and savings to our check services, and the benefits will become increasingly noticeable to customers over time. Your institution will notice some differences immediately after we convert to the new systems in 2002. (Visit our web site at www.stls.frb.org to learn about the specific changes you will see.)

To minimize the effect of these changes, we encourage payor banks to test electronic file receipt and posting capabilities during the first part of next year. Our goal is to make sure institutions can receive and process incoming files from us, as well as ensure that we can receive and process their outbound files.

Scheduling a test date for your financial institution is simple. Just visit www.stls.frb.org to view our test schedule and access the online scheduling form. You can also call Margie Saulka at (314) 444-8684 or 1-800-333-0810, ext. 44-8684, for a copy of the form. We encourage you to take advantage of the testing opportunities to ensure a smooth conversion.