| By Jim Bruene on February 5, 2008 12:23 PM | Comments (4) |
Although, remote deposit capture has captured a significant share of larger businesses, consumers have had fewer options:
- USAA has offered in-home scanning, called Deposit@Home, for more than a year (previous coverage here), but its customer base is limited to current and retired members of the military.
- DepositNow, a unit of BankServ, allows anyone to use remote deposit services, but it's geared towards businesses and costs at least $29/mo, far above what consumers or even smaller businesses will pay.
- A number of banks also make it available to small businesses and the very wealthy, but consumer rollouts have been nonexistent. The cost of a dedicated scanner makes it uneconomical for the mass market.
CheckFree aims to change that with a new service targeted to consumers and very small businesses (press release here). The key is using existing consumer scanners and multi-function printers. USAA has proven that this technology does indeed work, so we expect CheckFree's service will pass technical hurdles.
It's hard to predict consumer demand, but given that around 20% of U.S. households maintain a full- or part-time business endeavor, we expect strong demand if the price is reasonable and technology is extremely easy to use.
Remote deposit services could be used as the cornerstone of a premium online banking offering (note 2) attractive to microbusiness (note 1) owners and consumers who still receive paper checks a few times per month.
Notes:
- We define a microbusiness as one with $50,000 or less in annual revenue, typically a part-time, home-based business. For more information see Online Banking Report #107/108: Small and Microbusiness Banking Online.
- See Online Banking Report #109 for ideas on how to create a premium online banking channel.
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just FYI, Jwaala provides this capability nicely integrated as part of MoneyTracker, so get some HomeDeposit with your PFM as they say...
How long will paper checks be around? When will businesses adopt a B2B version of PayPal?
The US Federal Reserve has called Remote Deposit Capture“The most important development the (U.S.) banking industry has seen in years”. This is the next step in extending the reach of this type of service. If you want to find out more or track the progress of this technology go to www.remotebankdeposit.com.
Many of these new products are very exciting and it is good to see community banks being able to bring these products to their communities. With Both a high level of service and technology. One such bank is Hampshire First Bank based in Southern New Hampshire.