Famous Footwear Picks Equifax For Check Processing Support

ATLANTA, April 22, 1996 -- Famous Footwear, one of the nation's largest retail shoe outlets, has selected Equifax Check Services to automate the check acceptance process at its 800 stores across the nation.

The Wisconsin-based retailer will use Equifax's PathWays (SM) Check Risk Management System as its platform for verifying personal checks presented by shoppers. The system is being installed this month in all 800 retail outlets.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The PathWays system, however, will deal with an annual check volume at Famous Footwear stores totaling several hundred million dollars.

"This is an important decision by our corporation because our customers expect us to quickly and easily accept their personal checks," said Jeff Sonday, Accounting Manager, Famous Footwear. "We looked at a number of systems and none offered the ability to customize like PathWays."

The PathWays system will allow Famous Footwear stores to program in the specific criteria the chain wants to use for check acceptance, even to the point of varying the parameters by day of week and time of day if necessary to assist in the fight against fraud.

"The success of PathWays lies in our ability to partner with our customer and act as a consultant in monitoring check edits to control losses," said Thomas G. Gordon, senior vice president and general manager, Equifax Check Services. "By continually fine-tuning the parameters to improve performance, the retailer can concentrate on retailing."

Famous Footwear, headquartered in Madison, Wis., is the nation's largest chain of branded family shoe stores.

"Any retail operation of this size and sophistication needs a flexible check acceptance system to sustain that kind of growth," added Gordon, "and that's what we provide through PathWays."

Equifax Check Services is part of Equifax Payment Services, a leading provider of check verification/guarantee and card processing services that guaranteed more than $12 billion' worth of checks in 1995. Equifax Inc. (NYSE: EFX), committed to Global Information Leadership in the Information Age, is the leading provider of information services that help grant credit, authorize and process credit card and check transactions, insure lives and property and control healthcare costs. Established in 1899 in Atl anta, Equifax today employs 14,000 people throughout North and South America, the United Kingdom and continental Europe. Revenues for the 12 months ended March 31, 1996, totaled $1.7 billion.