PRESS RELEASE
Union Bank of California to Offer UPICs to Facilitate
Business-to-Business Electronic Payments
Bank Is First on West Coast to Offer UPICs;
Coastline Community College Issued UPIC to Streamline Payments
New York, NY, June 22, 2005 – Union Bank of California today announced it is now offering the Universal Payment Identification Code (UPIC) to its business customers to facilitate electronic business-to-business payments to lower costs and reduce the likelihood of ACH fraud.
Developed by the Electronic Payments Network, the ACH business of The Clearing House Payments Co. L.L.C., a UPIC is a unique bank account identifier that allows companies to receive electronic payments without divulging their sensitive banking information. UPICs are for credit payments only and are portable from one institution to another.
Union Bank's first UPIC was issued to Coastline Community College of Orange County, California. The UPIC will enable Coastline to streamline its electronic reimbursement process for the college’s contract education programs and provide the UPIC instead of the actual routing and bank account number. The UPIC will also enable Coastline to securely meet a mandate by the Central Contractor Registration that requires participation in the Electronic Fund Transfer (“EFT”) process to receive government payments for services provided to military students. Coastline’s use of a UPIC is part of the college’s progressive approach to the development and use of educational and instructional-related technology and to integrate technology into business operations, including accounting.
"UPICs are a highly effective tool to streamline and expand payments options for a wide range of customers, while offering additional fraud protection,” said Jesse Sandoval, Vice President of Union Bank of California. “UPICs are part of Union Bank’s commitment to state-of-the-art products that take advantage of opportunities as the payments business evolves. Union Bank is pleased to launch this important product with an innovative institution such as Coastline Community College, which realized early the cost savings potential and improved risk management from using a UPIC.”
UPICs are currently used by public and private entities across the U.S. and have been assigned to corporations in various industries, including technology, telecommunications, medical technologies, real estate, agriculture and public education.
“UPICs are helping remove two of the key barriers identified in the recent research from the Association of Financial Professionals– lack of accurate bank account data for vendors and the reluctance to give out bank account information. The UPIC makes it safe and easy to pay trading partners,” said Rossana Salaris, Senior Vice President of The Clearing House Payments Company responsible for the Electronic Payments Network. “We’re pleased with Union Bank’s support for UPIC, and we believe 2005 will be the pivotal year for UPIC adoption.”
How A UPIC Works
No system changes are needed to accounts payable, accounts receivable or cash management systems to use a UPIC. The UPIC looks and acts like a standard bank account number, travels through the ACH network with the Universal Routing and Transit number. However, a UPIC can only be used for ACH credit payments. A UPIC cannot be used to electronically debit an organization's account or create a check or demand draft, thus reducing the risk of unauthorized debits. The UPIC can be printed on invoices, provided on matched gift forms and displayed on the Internet. Account information is kept private.
The UPIC becomes an organization's permanent electronic payment address. Portability of the UPIC reduces the effort required in changing accounts due to bank mergers or changes in banking relationships, including the cost of communicating new bank account information to trading partners.
For more information about the UPIC, go to www.upic.com or contact Sharon Jablon, 201.319.5516, or Sharon.jablon@epaynetwork.com.
About Union Bank of California
Based in San Francisco, UnionBanCal Corporation (NYSE:UB) is a bank holding company with assets of $49.4 billion as of March 31, 2005. Its primary subsidiary, Union Bank of California, N.A., had 316 banking offices in California, Oregon and Washington, and 21 international facilities, as of March 31, 2005. The company's Web site is located at www.uboc.com.
About EPN and The Clearing House Payments Company
The Electronic Payments Network (www.epaynetwork.com), a payments business of The Clearing House Payments Company, is the only national private-sector ACH operator in the United States. Its membership consists of over 1,600 commercial banks, credit unions and savings banks. EPN processed more than 3.4 billion payments in 2004. The Clearing House Payments Company (www.theclearinghouse.org) is a private-sector, global payment systems infrastructure that clears and settles more than 20 million payments for $1.5 trillion per day. The Clearing House manages payment services that span the entire spectrum of paper, paper-to-electronic and electronic payments. For more information on The Clearing House, contact chip.savidge@theclearinghouse.org, 212.613.9896, or Greg Berardi, greg@bluemarlinpartners.com, 415.239.7826.
