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Deposit Checks To Your Bank By Taking a Photo
Pickens writes "The Mercury News reports that consumers will soon be able to deposit a check by snapping a photo of it with a cell phone and transmitting an encrypted copy to their bank. Although some critics contend paperless deposits are an attempt by the banking industry to eliminate 'float,' the standard one- or two-day waiting period between the time someone writes a check and the time the money is actually taken out of their account, actually remote-deposit capture started out as a way for big companies and financial institutions to process huge numbers of checks without having to ship them around the country. 'Our customers are becoming more and more tech-savvy,' said an SVP for mobile banking at Citibank. 'We're trying to support those people on the go.' Although the process adds a new wrinkle to concerns about fraud and the privacy of financial data, banks and the technology companies helping them say they have largely overcome these concerns. Another bank SVP said, 'For many institutions struggling to raise deposits and differentiate, this is an outstanding offering they can roll out inexpensively [note: interstitial]. It's a sticky product.'"
USAA has offered "Deposit@Home" for years. Instead of taking a photo you can just scan the check and upload it. The only problem is they require you to have a credit card with them as well to qualify for the service. Hopefully, if other banks offer this service for free than USAA will change that policy. I hate having to mail in checks and sit around for two weeks waiting for them to deposit it.
-==- Buy a Mac and leave me alone!
I've been doing this for months using USAA's iPhone app. When I showed my mom, she went out and got an iPhone and started using it. Before that I used their deposit@home service to scan checks on my computer. Beats driving to the bank just to deposit a check.
-TheDawgLives suckitdown
USAA lets me scan a check for instant deposit using a Windows browser, a Java applet and an attached scanner.
I'm a Linux kind of guy and, sadly, I have not found a way to make it work on my Ubuntu and Suse systems. But, it works great with my Windows laptop and it's simply the next best thing to direct deposit.
Obviously, a good secure app for smartphones (hopefully one is coming soon for Android but they've only announced for iPhone so far) will be a step beyond the scanner approach.
I kind of like the idea that someone hands me a check, and by the time they have closed their briefcase I have already made the deposit. No more canceling. It would be interesting to see if they can determine whether the check is good or not, and send instant feedback.
The next step is going to be depositing cash. I would love to be able to quickly scan my cash into my account, and then tear up the paper money (honors system). Hmm; gotta think that one through a bit more.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
USAA Bank app for the iPhone already lets you do this. You don't actually save the image to your phone, it is stored in RAM and then immediately transmitted over the air to the bank servers (hopefully encrypted but who knows?).
I have had this option with usaa.com for almost a year now, and it's GREAT. As for the photo, it is NOT saved in your phone, ever. Once the bank accepts the images, it instructs you to write VOID on the check and shredd it. Quite nice to be able to drop a check in within minutes of receiving it, and use it too!
Wire transfers cost $25 a transfer here.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
You can already do this at USAA Bank. My sister has had this option for a few years now. USAA has recently added the ability to snap a photo and make a deposit from your iPhone.
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
We are in the process of rolling out this same sort of program at our company as well (as I've been building about a dozen servers to support it). We've had the ability to deposit by mail for ages and this is the next logical step.
With most of our userbase being military and deployed to locations where they cannot access any branch services at all. Our userbase has become tech savvy enough to support a system like this. The largest impediment to implementing a system like this has been having the tech easy enough to use a "non-geek" can perform the tasks necessary without needing a large amount of training.
To those saying "What if I want to deposit counterfit checks". Well several systems are in place to prevent or at least mitigate that damage. You are only allowed to deposit up to a certain amount via the system (and have funds immediately accessible), the checks are processed real-time and won't be accepted without several validity checks passing and the account money is being collected from also happens as close to real-time as possible. Remember, just cause you deposit a check doesn't mean it can't bounce, that money is not truely in your account until funds are transferred from the check writers account. If you have those funds available for use immediately, it's because your financial institution trusts you to now deposit bad checks.
The the comment above about "great, just what I want, images of checks on my phone". The application itself handles taking the photo and no local copy is retained on the phone after the process is completed. (The image of the check is still available on the company's servers for review just like if you mailed in checks or deposited them via our branches.)
Yes. We still have the freedom to own a firearm,
I don't have that unless I get a license and deal with a whole lot of legislation.
choose where to live,
I can live anywhere I please in the EU. What makes you think I can't?
express religious and political opinions without being jailed,
I can do this. What makes you think I can't?
choose our own doctors,
I can do this. What makes you think I can't?
choose whether to buy health insurance,
I can, if I so choose, buy private health insurance. Though for some idiot reason, many private insurance policies don't cover diagnostic procedures and finding out what's wrong with you is half the battle on the NHS. There's no legislative reason for the private insurers to refuse to cover diagnostic procedures, they're just wankers like that.
and choose where to go to college-- this week anyway. Next week? Who knows.
I did choose where to go to college. As did my brother. In both of our cases, a major part of the decision making process was "at least 100 miles away from here".
Seriously, are you trolling or do you have some vision of Europe as being a dystopia where everyone is told what to eat, what to think and how to shit from cradle to grave?
Might want to check out a credit union. They may not have as many ATM locations, but I get free bill pay, ATM fee reimbursement (I get the $2.00 back BoA charges to use their ATM!), and high interest checking from LGECCU. Any fees I do get charged like overdraft, are fairly reasonable compared to a big bank.
The fact that companies charge you to make electronic payments is criminal. Luckily, Progressive is the only company I deal with that does that to me.
Oh, and what's up with paying huge interest-rates on a "credit card" when most people have a much cheaper line of credit backed by their house anyways ? How does it make sense to borrow from the credit-card-company and pay 10% interest or something, when mortgage-rates are a third that ?
Eh? I pay -ZERO- interest on my credit card. I just pay the balance every month.
Credit cards are not loans and if you use them as if they were, you’re an idiot. It doesn’t make sense to borrow from the credit card company and pay 14% (or higher) interest. You aren’t supposed to.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Internet Banking and Wire Transfers are different things in the US. If I want to pay a bill or transfer money to another person in the US using Internet Banking I can do so for free. Either the money will be transfered electronically using ACH, intrabank transfer or my bank will just write and mail a check to the person.
Morpheus, God of Dreams.