ELECTRONIC CHECK PRESENTMENT ECP

A process that allows financial institutions to exchange digital images of checks instead of paper to increase the speed of of the check cashing process. The signing of the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act by President Bush permitted the use of electronic check presentment (ECP). Electronic check presentment saves financial institutions the cost of sending checks and the storage of those checks, in addition to better customer service.

The main benefits of the electronic check presentment are faster check clearing and the potential to detect check fraud or insufficient funds at an earlier stage. Also, with digital images, security is a main concern and therefore digital images use strong digital signatures for authentication.