HSBC Securities Services Successfully Automates Corporate Actions Processing with CheckFree eVent

Corporate actions implementation provides greater visibility and control and reduces operational costs 


ATLANTA and BOSTON, Oct. 1  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sibos Booth F43 -- CheckFree Corporation (NASDAQ:CKFR) today announced the successful implementation of its corporate actions solution, CheckFree eVent(TM), at HSBC Securities Services (HSS). HSS has already realized significant business benefits from the rationalization of its corporate actions data management processes, including greater visibility and control of the corporate actions process.

The CheckFree eVent implementation is a key component of HSS's strategic technology architecture project, which enhances its market-leading investment administration platform. In addition to automating corporate actions processing, the solution delivers successful implementation of ISO 15022 messages and market practice.

HSS is now able to create an electronic "golden record" of any announcement, by automatically processing and comparing announcements from custodians in ISO 15022 formats and corporate actions data vendors. CheckFree eVent's exceptions management and audit capabilities have also further strengthened operational controls within HSS. At HSS, the CheckFree eVent solution replaces the market norm of numerous business teams receiving announcements in manual forms (e.g., email, fax or letter), which leads to time-consuming and control-challenging processing.

"With CheckFree eVent we now have much greater visibility and control of our corporate actions processing, where we are seeing significant volume growth on the back of new mandates and market trends," said Richard Godfrey, global COO of institutional fund services at HSS. "We have also created a new centralized 'announcement validation team' to leverage the benefits of the new solution. The team now has full responsibility for corporate actions announcement capture, data scrubbing, validation and publishing, realizing the standardization and control benefits of automation."

The move to create a dedicated team focused on corporate actions processing also enables resources in other business units to focus on the subsequent tasks of onward processing of events such as fund manager notification, decision capture and instruction processing.

"We have worked hard with HSBC to build a flexible system to automate the announcement capture process, since the implementation and development of market practice is still evolving," says Gary Mercer, managing director, CheckFree. "Corporate actions automation strengthens the link between clients and asset service providers with their use of ISO messaging over SWIFT. The flexibility of CheckFree eVent helps deliver a solution to deal with the complexity of processing over 60 different ISO corporate actions types and local market practices. We are delighted that this landmark implementation of CheckFree eVent has been a resounding success at HSS."

About CheckFree eVent

Based on workflow technology, CheckFree eVent is designed to automate the routing of corporate actions messages to the right person for action at the appropriate stage in the lifecycle. Together with its comprehensive alert and escalation facilities, CheckFree eVent can ensure that events are responded to in an efficient and timely manner. CheckFree eVent can reduce the risk of errors and provide valuable proof of compliance with audit and archive facilities.

SWIFTReady accredited, CheckFree eVent is built on the same financial messaging platform as the SWIFTReady Gold accredited CheckFree TradeFlow solution. CheckFree eVent has achieved the 2007 B.I.S.S. Gold Accreditation for Corporate Actions Systems for five consecutive years. This designation, along with the SWIFTReady accreditation for Corporate Actions for three consecutive years, further demonstrates CheckFree's strong commitment to technology leadership in the corporate actions space.  For more information about CheckFree eVent and other products visit http://www.checkfree.com/.

About CheckFree (http://www.checkfreecorp.com/)

Founded in 1981, CheckFree Corporation (NASDAQ:CKFR) provides financial electronic commerce services and products to organizations around the world. CheckFree Electronic Commerce solutions enable thousands of financial services providers and billers to offer the convenience of receiving and paying household bills online, via phone or in person through retail outlets. CheckFree Investment Services provides a broad range of investment management solutions and outsourced services to hundreds of financial services organizations, which manage about $1.8 trillion in assets. CheckFree Software develops, markets and supports payment processing solutions that are used by financial institutions to process more than two-thirds of the 14 billion Automated Clearing House transactions in the United States, and supports reconciliation, exception management, risk management, transaction process management, corporate actions processing, and compliance within thousands of organizations worldwide.

About HSBC Securities Services (http://www.hsbcnet.com/hss)

HSBC Securities Services (HSS) is a division within Global Transaction Banking, part of the HSBC Group.  HSS provides traditional and alternative custody, fund administration and related securities services to asset managers, insurance companies, pension funds, banks and private equity firms. HSS's global assets under custody were reported as US$5.4 trillion at 30 June 2007.  Global assets under administration totaled US$1.3 trillion as at 30 June 2007.

About HSBC Holdings plc

HSBC Holdings plc (HSBC) serves over 125 million customers worldwide through some 10,000 offices in 83 countries and territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa. With assets of US$2.1 trillion as at 30 June 2007, HSBC is one of the world's largest banking and financial services organizations. HSBC is marketed worldwide as 'the world's local bank'.

Certain of the Company's statements in this press release are not purely historical, and as such are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These include statements regarding management's intentions, plans, beliefs, expectations or projections of the future. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including without limitation, the various risks inherent in the Company's business, and other risks and uncertainties detailed from time to time in the Company's periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2007 (filed August 24, 2007). One or more of these factors have affected, and could in the future affect the Company's business and financial results in future periods, and could cause actual results to differ materially from plans and projections. There can be no assurance that the forward-looking statements made in this press release will prove to be accurate, and issuance of such forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation by the Company, or any other person, that the objectives and plans of the Company will be achieved. All forward-looking statements made in this press release are based on information presently available to management, and the Company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. 

DATASOURCE: CheckFree Corporation



CONTACT:  Investor relations, Tina Moore, [phone],

, or Media relations, Judy DeRango Wicks, [phone],

, both of CheckFree Corporation



Web site:  http://www.checkfreecorp.com/

http://www.checkfree.com/

http://www.hsbcnet.com/hss 

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