SOFTPRO North America: Tim Morris appointed as President

The nomination of Tim Morris is part of the "focus on customer" activities that the group has started in recent weeks. Heinz Reschke adds: "The Softpro team and many of our customers are excited that Tim is heading our American operation. He enjoys an outstanding reputation among our customers, prospects, partners and the financial industry as whole and has proven himself as a businessman with integrity."

Together with Alain Sarraf (CTO) and Ulrich Pantow (Product Manager) of Softpro, Tim plays a key role in Softpro's American User Group - an industry forum for exchanging ideas about fraud detection that is acknowledged by the banking industry as an important driver for fraud detection technology. It includes members from the world's leading banks such as American Express, Bank of America, Chase Heloc, Citigroup, Key Bank and Wachovia. In 2007, Frost and Sullivan has honored Softpro with a leadership award for outstanding customer service.

"I look forward to my new role as head of Softpro's American operation." states Tim. "We are ready for today's and tomorrows' challenges and will serve the American banking industry in reducing the fraud burden. We strive to continue to be the preferred partner for best-in-class in check fraud detection and prevention as well as delivering the best solutions for electronic signatures based on handwritten signatures"

Softpro founded its US-subsidiary in 1999 and grew its business there from two to 20 people. The US market is regarded as one the most promising one for the future expansion of Softpro. The total amount of attempted check fraud against banks' deposit accounts reached an estimated $12.2 billion in 2006 (up from 5.5 billion in 2003). Check fraud losses incurred in 80 per cent of the banks (up from 75 percent in 2003). Although the use of checks is decreasing slightly, America's affinity to checks is not diminishing: 33 million checks were written in 2006 alone. The Check 21 Act in the USA opens the door to both efficient image processing, and at the same time eliminates traditional security features such as touch, smell, and feel of paper. Such image-based check transactions pose a threat with serious loss consequences. Check fraud crime is easy to commit with little downside risk to the perpetrator. Enhanced financial products, services and customer access as well as enabling technologies such as scanners, all increase the avenues of opportunity for fraud. Softpro addresses these challenges with a holistic solution called FraudOne, now successfully in production at leading financial institutions around the globe, and securing millions of transactions every day.

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