| By Jim Bruene on April 13, 2008 9:23 PM | Comments (4) |
USAA is no longer the only financial institution offering consumers the ability to deposit paper checks from the comfort of home using standard home scanning technology (see previous coverage here).
Through DepoZip, a new offering from Massachusetts-based corporate credit union, EasCorp, five northeastern credit unions have recently begun offering remote deposit capture services for their members. In addition, Austin, TX-based Randolph-Brooks FCU is slated to launch it later this spring.
According to its published prices, the cost is $15,000 to implement the program ($5,000 for the license and $10,000 for training), then $100/mo plus $0.40 per active user plus $0.01 per its plus applicable image processing fees which range from $0.03 to $0.14 per item. Compared to manually handling deposits at the teller window, that's a bargain.
The service was piloted beginning in August last year and launched in November at Sharon Credit Union (see inset image) and Hanscom Federal Credit Union. The latest to roll it out is 300,000 member Digital Federal Credit Union.
| Company | HQ | Size | Service Name | Launch Date |
| Sharon CU | Sharon, MA | $590 mil assets | VIP Deposit (Virtual Item Processing) | Nov 2007 |
| Hanscom FCU | Bedford, MA | $280 mil assets | Easy Deposit | Nov 2007 (pilot began Aug 2007) |
| Service CU | Portsmouth, N.H. | $1 billion assets | Dec 2007 | |
| Paragon FCU | Montvale, NJ | $390 mil assets 62,000 members | eDeposit | Jan 2008 |
| Digital FCU | Marlborough, MA | 320,000 members; 150,000 banking online | PC Deposit | Feb 2008 (2000 members enrolled in first 3 weeks; pilot began Aug 2007) |
| Randolph-Brooks FCU | San Antonio, TX | $3 billion assets 250,000 members | coming in late spring |
Digital has done a soft launch - not much information sent out to members yet - a news piece in January saying it was coming. In fact, this article prompted me to check it out at Digital and it was not easy to find information on the site. I signed up, and the process said that they will get back to me within a few days after applying - wish it was realtime sign up, but the number of members who signed up the first month is still impressive.
I've used the service with USAA and it works great!
Just a note: Pennsylvania State Employees CU (a $3 billion CU with one branch) has been allowing members to enter a deposit amount via the internet for years. The amount is credited immediately from a general ledger account, and the member simply drops the check in the mail. As long as the check arrives within a few days, everybody's happy.
PSECU sells its UPost software to other credit unions, and the program has been adopted by several dozen so far.
Amplify CU in Austin is using Jwaala's remote deposit capture product with great success. They have a great local TV ad, highlighting this service. It starts off with a view of a guy in his upstairs bedroom, from outside his house at night. Making his deposits with a few clicks. Good to see the CU community competing with professional ads like this and good features like their HomeDeposit and advanced online banking features.