USAA bank which is privately held would like to see customers depositing checks right away through their phones. There are plans by USAA to update its Apple iPhone application this week to bring in the check deposit feature.

This will require all customers to use their phones camera to take a photo of both sides of the check. Once the send button is pressed the photo goes onto the deposit-taking system as it would normally said Wayne Peacock who is an executive vice president for USAA. This is all done electronically which means that customers won’t have to mail the check to the bank at a later date.

USAA suggest filing, discarding or voiding the check. To reduce possible fraud only eligible customers for credit and have insurance using USAA are allowed to use this deposit feature. Roughly 60% of customers qualify according to Peacock. USAA is just below the top 20 in USA banks. There is one branch only in San Antonio. The introduction of depositing a check was 3 years ago. You could do this using a scanner from home. That is where the idea for the phone feature came from, USAA plan this year to put this on other phones.

Out of 7.2 million customers around 1 million use their phones to gain access to their accounts. This can be done in many ways such as, the browser, text message or an iPhone application which was introduced back in May. It has been predicted that more banks will follow suit and offer a similar type of deposit capability. This is very convenient as people always have a mobile to hand. So Would you like to Deposit Checks by iPhone?

Source – nytimes.com