While financial institutions are understandably risk averse, and historically prone to holding back on new technologies, the benefits now offered by the application service provider (ASP) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) models have become impossible to ignore. The value of SaaS and ASP solutions go beyond issues of technology and reduced up-front investments. Optional services, such as processing support, additional data or premium support hotlines, add a great deal more value to the basic hosting package, and provide clear differentiators to in-house solutions and treasury solutions from the big enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors.