Unisys Wins Outsourcing Deal With Seattle Bank

Unisys Corp. has won a seven-year, $400 million contract to provide digital check-capture services to Washington Mutual Inc. Under the deal, disclosed Thursday, Unisys will operate and staff digital-imaging centers at the Seattle bank's local branches. Unisys will also create and staff regional processing centers across the country to handle additional item processing for Washington Mutual.

Bank officials say the service better prepares Washington Mutual to take advantage of pending legislation that would let banks substitute paper checks with electronic copies for processing. Digitizing checks also means "our customers will get access to funds a lot quicker," says Armando Angelbello, a senior VP at Washington Mutual. The project will go into testing in the first half of next year.

Currently, checks from Washington Mutual branches are forwarded to a central processing facility, where they are processed by hand. Washington Mutual is phasing out the system, along with the service provider that oversees its operation. Washington Mutual declined to name the contractor.

Angelbello wouldn't speculate as to how much money the deal could save Washington Mutual in transaction costs.