MEMPHIS, Tenn., July 12, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- Check 21 is changing the way businesses and individuals interact with banks and how banks interact with each other. The law, the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act, was passed in October 2003 and allows checks to be converted to digital images and processed electronically. First Horizon National Corp. and its banks, First Horizon Bank and First Tennessee Bank, are pioneers in bringing Check 21 technology into everyday interactions with the banks' customers, making it easier for people to do their banking business.
First Horizon is continuing that tradition with an agreement announced today between First Horizon Bank and Financial Technologies Inc. (FTI) that will enable customers of First Horizon Bank to have their deposits credited overnight.
FTI's QuickPost(sm) service will allow First Horizon customers to have their deposits forwarded overnight through any of the more than 4,100 domestic locations of The UPS Store(R). Customers take their checks and completed deposit slips to the nearest location of The UPS Store. Once there, they place their items in QuickPost envelopes for next business day delivery to one of FTI's state-of-the-art operations processing centers. There, the deposits are processed and the funds electronically routed to the customer's First Horizon Bank account.
First Horizon Bank executives said the QuickPost service is a strong complement to the bank's First Deposit Plus product, which allows a business of any size to use a special scanner and software to deposit checks electronically and immediately, giving the business faster access to its money without losing productivity while an employee goes to the bank to make a deposit. First Deposit Plus customers with offices in more than one city are able to consolidate their banking relationships from several local banks to just one bank. Customers in more than 40 states already use First Deposit Plus.
First Horizon National Corp. also is a member of Viewpointe, the leading provider of check image storage and exchange services to the nation's financial institutions. Viewpointe is helping to transform paper-intensive check payment operations into electronic payments processes. First Horizon was the first non-owner bank to become a member of Viewpointe.
And First Horizon customers soon may have access to ATMs in more remote locations because new digital automated teller machines will require less frequent on-site maintenance. The digital ATMs will read both sides of a deposited check, present an image of the check on a screen for approval and provide a receipt with the image of each check deposited. Because the images of the checks will be transmitted electronically to credit the customer's account for the deposit, First Horizon will be able to reduce on-site maintenance visits and thus place ATMs in more locations.
Viewpointe, First Deposit Plus, digital ATMs and QuickPost were all made possible by Check 21.
First Horizon Bank offers bank products through offices of First Horizon Home Loans, another First Horizon National Corp. company, and opens full-service branches where a significant number of mortgage customers also have purchased the company's banking products. QuickPost will be available to all of these banking customers, including those of the First Horizon Bank branches in Atlanta, Dallas and Washington, D.C. later this quarter.
"Although we don't have bank branches across the country, products and services we offer like QuickPost and First Deposit Plus enable customers across the country to easily do business with us. That's one of the reasons we have one of the highest customer retention rates of any bank in the country," said Sarah Meyerrose, executive vice president of operations and technology for First Horizon National Corp. (NYSE:FHN), the banks' parent company.
Tom Cable, president of Financial Technologies Inc., said, "QuickPost is a great value-added service because it provides a fast, convenient and secure alternative for customers to forward deposits to their financial institutions and have them post the next business day."
About First Horizon
The bank is a division of First Tennessee Bank National Assoc., which has the largest business and consumer banking market share in Tennessee. The 13,000 employees of First Horizon National Corp. (NYSE:FHN) provide financial services to individuals and business customers through hundreds of offices located in more than 40 states. The corporation's three major brands -- FTN Financial, First Horizon and First Tennessee - provide customers with a broad range of products and services including:
-- Capital markets, one of the nation's top underwriters of
U.S. government agency securities
-- Mortgage banking, one of the nation's top 20 mortgage
originators and top 15 servicers, which earned a top-10
ranking in customer satisfaction from J.D. Power and
Associates
-- Retail/commercial banking, with the largest market share
in Tennessee and one of the highest customer retention
rates of any bank in the country
FHN companies have been recognized as some of the nation's best employers by AARP, Working Mother and Fortune magazines. FHN also was named one of the nation's 100 best corporate citizens by Business Ethics magazine. More information can be found at www.fhnc.com.
About FTI
Financial Technologies Inc. is a subsidiary of NetBank, Inc. (Nasdaq:NTBK), a diversified financial services provider. FTI offers financial institutions technology solutions that include: NetServ(sm), a private-label Internet banking solution; QuickPost(sm), a deposit and payment forwarding service; and PowerPost(sm), a remote deposit capture service. For more information, call 1-866-441-4FTI.