Our Panel

Steve Anderson
Vice President and Check Image Strategist, Branch Banking and Trust Co. (BB&T Corp.)
BB&T's processing services area, Check Operations, is the key sponsor for the Check 21 initiative led by a Check 21 "czar." The bank is taking an enterprise approach to work across silos that otherwise might be working at cross purposes ("We try to make sure our product people don't make changes that operations can't support and that we don't make changes operationally that impact the product or ultimately the client.") BB&T is using Check 21 as an occasion to train employees on the range of payments electronification, including ACH conversion.

Matt Calman
Senior vice president and process engineering executive for Image Payments & Transactions Infrastructure, Bank of America Corp.
Check 21 project interdependencies are managed by Bank of America's enterprise Check 21 program office. Calman's team is responsible for developing image send and receive capabilities. The bank is working with a FSTC workgroup organized to create a common language around image quality to be able to work out inevitable differences between banks.

Regis F. Reinersmann, Jr.
Vice President — Bank Operations Site Manager, PNC Financial Services Group
PNC Bank's approach to Check 21 is focused on meeting the requirements of the law. This includes processing substitute checks, making appropriate customer disclosures, ensuring that customer re-credit practices are in place, and providing employee education. In conjunction with its Check 21 project, PNC is deploying technology to prepare its back office for the industry adoption of check image exchange. PNC will also be launching product capabilities made possible by both Check 21 and image exchange.

Lou Riehl
(at the time of Banking Strategies' interview in May) Senior vice president and executive in charge of the Systems and Industry Strategy group within the Enterprise Operating Services area, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Also chairman of Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC).
Work toward implementation on Check 21 is taking place as J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank One Corp. are in the midst of a merger requiring the resolution of some decisions about platforms and processes. As a collecting bank, Chase's focus has been on collecting checks in an electronic environment using images. As a paying bank, customer education and customer statement issues in particular have been a focus.