Automating escheatment earns respected innovation award

Aite Group honors U.S. Bank with 2022 Impact Award in Operational Efficiency.

Escheatment is among the most time-consuming tasks for companies that are required to manually track and report unclaimed checks to as many as 55 U.S. jurisdictions. U.S. Bank recently launched Automated Escheatment Service to relieve that headache. And its innovation was rewarded again.

For creating a “complete payables product,” U.S. Bank earned the 2022 Impact Award for Operational Efficiency by the Aite Group, a global research and advisory firm.

“U.S. Bank is thrilled that Aite has honored us again for innovating a solution designed to help our clients prevent items from going unclaimed and to help resolve those that ultimately do,” said Larry T. Andretich, U.S. Bank vice president and senior product manager. “It’s integrated with our check data warehouse. Uses an automated workflow to move checks through the escheatment process. And provides exceptions-based notifications to direct our clients through each step of the process.”

It’s the third straight year the Aite Group has recognized U.S. Bank for “innovation achieved by financial institutions leveraging technology to surpass the status quo.” The bank won the 2021 Impact Award in Product Development for Instant Card, its virtual corporate credit card program, and in 2020 for Onboarding Tracker in the Cash Management and Payments category.

About escheatment

Because state governments can lawfully seize unclaimed funds, companies are responsible for escheatment – the process of tracking and reporting uncashed checks. That process can drain time and resources while adding no value to the bottom line.

In fact, an unclaimed $5 payment costs as much to process as a $5,000 one. Moreover, if property is not escheated during the two annual regulatory cycles, states can severely and retroactively penalize businesses.

How automated escheatment works

By integrating with the SinglePoint^® treasury platform, automated escheatment connects the bank’s check payables service to the processing of those payables.

In its impact brief, the Aite Group called automated escheatment “a comprehensive solution” that reduces friction in the payment stream and “creates a significant improvement in the customer experience.” Financial managers who log into the treasury platform can monitor and manage check payables from start to finish.

“Additionally, (automated escheatment) enables U.S. Bank clients to provide a nice benefit to their own customers – by reuniting those customers with money they owe them in a timely way,” the judges said.

Contact us to learn more about how automation could make escheatment more efficient and effective.