Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
Or what if US just stops using inferior checks and just wires money like rest of the world? It's also possible to even push money in to credit cards directly, in addition to normal bank wires. Checks are insecure, inconvenient and pretty useless in today's electronic world. For non-electronical purposes you can just use cash.
Those are those paper thingies that nobody seems to accept these days aren't they?
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::
Living With a Nerd
Another technology where the US is the world leader!
Go USA! Go USA!
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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.
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.
Most likely you could talk your bank here into issuing a check for you if you ask them nicely, but it would almost certainly be more expensive than a straight electronic transfer.
On the other hand, somebody likely had fun and made a modest amount of money developing that check scannin app, so the effort I guess is not totally wasted.
-- That grumpy BSD guy - http://bsdly.blogspot.com/
I mean this as a genuine question: why is the US so far behind Europe in this?
I haven't seen a cheque in years. Is it too expensive to move everyone over to electronic transfers (surely it's cheaper to get rid of cheque processing)? Too difficult to change the habits of a large population quickly? Concerns about fraud? Plain unwillingness to change? It can't be the recent banking crisis because we had that too...
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!
Some credit unions offer this service as well; I'm using Alliant Credit union's eDepositplus and its working great. You just need to donate to a PTA or certain charities to join, not hard at all.
I hardly ever use checks these days. Can I just take a picture of some cash and deposit it instead?
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.
Not only do you get some sort of possible bizzare nerd cred for using DEC's old credit union, but just like USAA, you've been able to deposit via check for about 3 years now. Sure DCU has no snazzy iPhone app, but, damned if i've ever lived near one of their banks in my lifetime.
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.)
Great, but what idiot trusts paypal with their money?
The US banking system is basically where we (UK) were in the 1980's. I even saw someone writing a check in a supermarket when I was in the US recently! I haven't written a cheque for many years and, in fact, APACS will be outlawing cheques here in 2012. The US banking system is much more fragmented in the USA and doesn't have the regulatory structure and capital guarantee that UK banks have to have. Some banks only span a few towns (although these are disappearing) and don't have a national presence. They still have "bank managers" too and you can go in an "speak to them" - Most UK branches haven't had this for years.
It's only since "faster payments" was introduced a 4 years ago that person to person payments using online banking etc have really taken off. I don't think any of the big UK banks charge for faster payments. Of course, you can have fun sending 0.01 to your friends with a transfer label "goats.cx" etc.
They also don't have the concept of "direct debit". something that astounds me. You either have to go to an online bill consolidator service of have to pay each bill (sending a cheque!!!!) individually!
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.
Banks used to make their money by loaning the money you deposit to other people at higher prices. Interest rates being what they are today it's hard to make the kind of profits that banks are accustomed to that way. They're far more likely to make money by charging various fees, paying you nothing for your deposits and investing your deposits in high paying (assuming they don't fail) risky investment opportunities. In spite of the promise of financial system reform this is very likely to continue.
USAA customers have been able to do this with their mobile phones for quite a long time now. They've also been able to use scanners and software at home to do it for even longer (years).
They also don't have the concept of "direct debit". something that astounds me.
Every service that I need to pay for, from my gas utility, electric utility, student loan, and credit card bill can be paid directly at the company's website as a direct debt. I enter my routing and checking account numbers, and the bill gets deducted from my bank account.
I think you misunderstand what "Direct Debit" means in the UK. Direct Debit is basically a system where you authorise a company to withdraw money from your account each month. This is very similar to a standing order (where you instruct your bank "transfer X amount to another bank account on this day each week/month/year") except that for Direct Debits the amount to withdraw is determined by the recipient of the payment.
This means that my phone bill is automatically paid in full each month, even though it is not a fixed amount. I don't have to do anything after the DD is initially set up - no logging into the telco's website to organise the transfer each month, etc.
On the face of it, DD sounds like a security nightmare since you're basically authorising a third party to withdraw however much they like from your account. But it is backed by the direct debit guarantee, which is a legal requirement for the bank to protect you from fraudulent transactions and immediately refund you if there is any dispute. So from the consumer's point of view, the security is reasonable.
Pretty much all regular bill payments can be done by direct debit or standing order, so the need to actually go and pay it manually (whether that is by handing over cash, a cheque or organising an electronic transfer each month) is pretty much non-existent.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
USAA allows account holders to take a picture of a check with an iPhone and has for about a year. Now if I only had an iPhone... .
USAA also has deposit@home, you can scan a check with yer handy dandy scanner and e-deposit it e-electronically without going to the bank. One could email you a jpg of the endorsed check and you could deposit it without the hassle of postage, if you were so inclined.
No, many companies have that over here in the US, especially the utilities, etc. I personally do NOT like this as that I don't like giving hardly anyone or any company direct access to my bank account.
However, many banks here are offering free bill pay from the banks website, where if the company is hooked to the 'system' (I forget the name) when I set up a bill to pay it is often transferred from the bank to the company electronically in about 1-2 days. If the bill to pay is a person or company not in their electronic system, the bank cuts them a physical check and mails it to them..free of charge.
As for automatic payments!??!
Eeek...not me. I like to see exactly what the bill is for everything, and pay the amounts out myself. Heck, what happens if you make a mistake in checking somehow...and your funds are lower than thought..and all those automatic bill payments come in and cause numerouse NSF (insufficient funds) penalties?? That can cost you serious cash since those can often be $25 - $39+ per overdraft.
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