VALLEY FORGE, Pa. – The just-released second of what are typically three updates a year to the USERS core system is more substantial than normal and touches on some hot-button industry issues. There are four new components in the latest release for USERS' DataSafe. They are all add-on modules that clients have to purchase, ranging from just a few thousand dollars to many thousand. One of the most interesting new functions is Courtesy Pay Manager. Courtesy Pay, otherwise known as overdraft protection (or even privilege), gives credit unions the system tools to handle selection of members to participate in courtesy pay, the payment of overdraft items, charging overdraft fees, generating member notices and reporting on the overdraft activity. USERS SVP/Chief Technology Officer John Schooler said USERS had been getting requests from its clients for overdraft functionality. "This has been a real hot topic as all these consultants have been making the rounds touting the non-interest income they generate. For those of our clients who made a commitment to go with courtesy pay, this automates the entire process," said Schooler. This is one of the more expensive of the four add-ons said Schooler, given its capability to bring in non-interest income for CUs. Another new feature is the Internet Credit Bureau Interface. Rather than dialing into the credit bureaus, credit unions can now pull reports from the Internet, cutting the time from a few minutes to a few seconds. "It is particularly beneficial for Internet loan applications. By the time the member looks away and looks back, an answer can be there," said Schooler. USERS was helped by its Fiserv ties with this component. AFTECH already had something similar in place, and helped USERS develop its own. The third new add-on is the Signature Pad/Receipts to Optical module. This allows staff to capture an image of a member's signature on a signature pad and store it within the USERS' optical system. With this system there's only one paper receipt, the one the member walks away with. "Traditionally credit unions would have members sign receipts and the member gets one and the credit union keeps one. They would wind up in a paper bag in storagse somewhere," said Schooler. He said the new system is just like what's in Best Buy, where just a single paper receipt is generated and taken by the customer. Schooler said this add-on was very important as it was coming up in the new sales process, with those vendors that had it touting it. The fourth and final component is Laser Forms e-Signatures. This is similar to the signature capture for receipts, however it is much more in-depth. It captures a signature and embeds it into every signing location within a PDF document and is then stored in the optical system. "It can be used with loan and member account documents. There's very sophisticated security that `webs' the signature to the document to assure the credit union that the signature wasn't reused. If anyone tries to change anything about the document, it deteriorates and becomes a useless document," said Schooler. [email protected]