Slashdot Mirror
Coming Soon, Smartphone-Based Banking
An anonymous reader writes "Banks will be offering a new service at the end of the year that will let customers take a photo of a paper check and have it be deposited in their bank accounts, making the smartphone one step closer to an ATM."
USAA does this already. It's not "coming soon", it's already here. It's more or less who's still catching up.
Mod parent up, I'm on usaa and I've been depositing my checks using my iphone and now my android phone for about a year now.
Mod me up, mod me down, do your worst you modding clown.
What happens when you charge a $1300 macbook pro to your credit card for someone else, and then need compensation for it?
This objection comes up in every discussion of cheques/checks with Americans. Let's make this clear - the issue you're discussing is a solved problem. All over the rest of the world, you can just transfer money between bank accounts for free.
Here in Australia, when I need to pay my housemate my share of the rent, I log in to my online banking, select 'pay anyone' from the menu, select her name from the list of people I've paid recently (the site autofills her BSB and account numbers), I enter how much I want to give her and it's in her account the next morning. This service is free, works between all banks, credit unions, and building societies, and bounces money back to your account in the event of number and account name mismatch. It is essentially the same as wire transfers, but less complex and without the insane fees for shovelling some bits from one account to another. There is a system of checks (not cheques) and daily limits that keeps fraud from being any more of an issue than in the US.
Many small businesses and eBay sellers prefer this method of payment to any other for obvious reasons - it's free, it's reliable, and minimises effort for all parties.
I'd never used or considered using cheques until I lived in the States. I'm really, really glad that I don't have to keep using them.