(29 October 2009 – UK) A five year extension has been signed by Lloyds TSB, Barclays and HSBC to extend the UK cheque processing joint venture they jointly own with IT firm Unisys.The outsourcing contract for the Intelligent Processing Solutions Limited (iPSL) provides outsourced cheque and credit clearing services for the major banks in the UK.
Lloyds TSB, Barclays and HSBC all hold minority stakes in the project with Unisys being the majority holder.
The venture provides large-scale, outsourcing services for the UK banking sector, covering cheque processing, image archive and retrieval, ‘lock-box’ services, reconciliation and other related back-office functions.
Royston Hoggarth, chairman, iPSL said that by using a centralised, shared-services model that delivers significant economies of scale, iPSL enables its client banks to process payments with greater cost-efficiency than they could achieve individually.