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.'"

Comments

Re:Oh yeah, great idea

[Lev13than]

Just what I want on my cell phone...a picture of a piece of paper that has my checking account number and bank routing number on it. ::eye roll::

Everyone you have ever given a cheque to already has your account number, bank routing number and home address. Despite the little lock watermark and "micro-printing", cheques are 100% non-secure and should be treated as such. At least the iPhone has a four-digit password to protect it...

I hate cheques!

[bsDaemon]

First off, why would people be critical of eliminating float?! This is the worst part of using cheques -- sort of like making a "credit" purchase on a debit card. If I'm paying someone, I want them to take the money out of my account NOW so that my balance updates immediately. Of course, no one really takes cheques anyway except for leasing offices and the like -- people who know where you live without a shadow of a doubt. I only ever write cheques for my leasing office, which is why I'm still on the same box I've had since I was 18... which reminds me, I sort of need to get some more.

Re:Checks

[businessnerd]

As someone who uses both a credit union and a bank, I recently had a discussion with the credit union about switching my checking over to the credit union. My first question was ATM availability and fees. This pretty much decided it. As someone who travels constantly for work, I need ATMs available without fees in most of the country. The credit union had plenty of ATMs where I live, but none outside of that area. While they offered 8 free transactions at out-of-network ATMs, that wasn't good enough for someone who travels weekly. On top of that, the actual ATM fee was higher than what my current bank charges. I don't get reimbursed for ATM fees, so this expense adds up very quickly.

The other factor was online banking. The credit union's web site is terrible and their online bill pay tools even worse. I pay all of my bills online and even send checks to individuals via the online bill pay (saves the cost of both checks and stamps). Not having decent tools for this is a deal breaker. Granted, the credit union is not all bad. They gave me a very competitive rate on an auto loan, but then at the same time, paying that loan is not as easy as it was when I had a loan with Volkswagen Credit. I hear a lot of people touting the superiority of credit unions over banks, but I have yet to see any evidence of this for my own banking needs.