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ITEM PROCESSING

Product information

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Item processing home

Quick link to item processing product information

Retail check processing
Online check viewing 
Ancillary services
Customized statement
         rendering
ACH service
Transit item deposit
Coin and currency
Disaster recovery svc.
Member Link
 

 

Retail check processing

Our check processing and settlement service is designed to meet the needs of financial institutions efficiently and economically. With the check processing services provided by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis, financial institutions can take advantage of the economies of scale that result from the processing of thousands of checks each day—without the expense of additional equipment and personnel.

Retail check processing services include

  • interception of items in Indianapolis, Detroit, Chicago, and Louisville,
  • return of missorts and extraneous items to the presenting bank,
  • microfilming and assignment of a unique trace number to each item,
  • computer preparation of your customers' processed items and transmission delivery to your in-house computer center or data servicer,
  • settlement with the presenting bank,
  • handling of all exception items,
  • the Internet based Member Link system that provides daily balances, activity information, and automated return item processing,
  • high dollar return notification, and
  • toll-free customer service numbers for check information, general inquiries, and return item reporting.

Online check viewing

Staff at your bank can view, print, or fax images of your customers’ checks using Image Library over the Internet. With this service you can provide check copies to your customers in minutes.

Or, let your customers print and view check images on demand. With this service, your customer can view and print checks through your home banking application.

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Ancillary services

Various options include processing of over-the-counter items, notification of items failing check digit routines, facsimile transmission of high dollar items for signature verification, or the use of the FHLBI for Federal Reserve settlement purposes only.

Customized statement rendering

Customized statement rendering allows you to choose from non-truncated items, truncated items, imaged statements, or electronic statements. With our statement service, the FHLBI offers discounted stock window envelopes, along with inventory control and warehousing.

Non-truncated items statement services: Non-truncated items service allows you to choose from daily or bulk filing services or non-truncated statements. With daily cycles, your items are finesorted into account number order and distributed to your institution on a daily basis. Bulk filing involves finesorting your items into account number order and then returning them to your institution for the statement matching process. To assist your staff in the matching of the statements, we insert account cut-slips during finesort.

For non-truncated statement services, your processed and over-the-counter items are held at the FHLBI until the predetermined statement date. They are then matched with the appropriate statements and inserted into your institutions’ envelopes. The statements can be mailed directly to your customers or returned to your institution for mailing.

Truncated items statement services: With this service, the FHLBI stores the items in a secure environment. Checks are then securely destroyed. Statements, along with up to two standard inserts, are mailed to your customers.

Imaged statements: Reduce postage expenses for those customers who wish to see their checks by returning imaged copies. At statement cutoff, the FHLBI receives a set of files that are matched to your customers' checks. The number of images per page can be changed to meet the different needs of your customers.

Electronic statements: Electronic statement service allows your customers to receive their statements over the Internet. The FHLBI uses a secure link from your home banking page to present the statement electronically.

Automated clearing house (ACH) service

Automated clearing house service enables an institution to post electronic transactions, both debit and credits, to its customers' and its own accounts. Examples of these transactions are mortgage payments, dividend payments, direct deposit of payroll, and Social Security deposits. ACH includes both originating and receiving processing options.

Our ACH service will

  • improve your ability to centralize cash management because of an accelerated funds availability schedule,
  • prevent the loss and theft of checks and eliminate the costs of processing the physical instruments,
  • provide the capability of settling and processing of items with one processor,
  • settle funds and receive your payments, as well as transmit to your service bureau for posting,
  • process your returns and notifications, eliminating the need for you to install and maintain FEDLINE hardware and software,
  • resolve discrepancies with the Federal Reserve on your behalf, and
  • post funds to your CMS account, earning interest daily.

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Transit item deposit

Our transit item deposit program involves the pick-up and delivery of non-cash items for credit to an institution's CMS account.

Same day ledger credit is received, with approximately 90 percent of the total deposit available for investment the next business day. No reserves are deducted from your available funds, and our schedule allows the deposit of more items on a same-day basis, which improves your collected balances.

To accelerate the collection of payments, we also provide a lockbox system that gives optimum float availability on transit deposits. The lockbox is simply a post office box system to which your customers mail their loan payments for speedy pick-up by the FHLBI.

Processing the contents of the lockbox through our operations center avoids incorrect payments and allows your servicer to receive daily reports that contain accurate information while freeing your staff for other activities.

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Coin and currency

Our armored truck service will deliver coin and currency to customer locations in the amounts and denominations requested. We will also pick up excess funds and credit them to your CMS account. The FHLBI will place your institution's coin and currency order with the appropriate cash vault service and then settle the orders with the institution's account at the FHLBI. This service provides control over cash requirements, offers a flexible means of placing orders, including, on-line, facsimile, and/or telephone. We also offer emergency or "special order" provisions. The use of an armored car service to deliver your coin and currency can also reduce your insurance expenses. Using our service also excludes the necessity of a correspondent relationship based solely on cash purposes.

Disaster recovery service

The FHLBI offers disaster recovery services for financial institutions with in-house check processing systems.

Although the possibility that a fire, tornado, or flood will extensively disable your institution's computer/sorting system seems remote, you could be taking a huge financial risk by not arranging for a contingency plan.

The FHLBI is available for you in the event of such disasters. We can support your system operations—sorting, proofing, corrections, microfilm, and check imaging.

Items can be intercepted at the appropriate Federal Reserve Bank and processed by the FHLBI; the information is transmitted to your institution's data servicer and/or in-house computers.

Our basic features include back-up coverage for your inclearing service within six hours of a disaster, support for six weeks, an annual disaster recovery test, and use of our site for testing conversion and training.

The FHLBI also ensures that items will be processed in the event a disaster hits Indianapolis by having its own contingency disaster plan.

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Member Link

In order to supply our customers with rapid data access, FHLB offers Member Link.

Through Member Link, members access extensive information about CMS account balances, proof and transit balances, deposit rates, and other item processing information as well as information about other FHLBI products and services.   Click here for more information about Member Link.


For more information about what the FHLBI item processing services can do for your institution, contact Kay Clark at (317) 465-0260 or e-mail at lclark@fhlbi.com, or contact Tonya Raines at (317) 465-0311 or e-mail at traines@fhlbi.com.

For a listing of our staff, click here.

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Copyright 2003, Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis

03/18/03