Two very different financial institutions are adding or expanding their mobile remote deposit capture services to meet what they say is growing customer acceptance of a new banking channel, one that removes paper from the payments system and hitches banks and credit unions onto the rising smart-phone star.
On the large financial-institution end, there’s JPMorgan Chase & Co. with $2.25 trillion in assets –one of the first big banks to enable customers to snap pictures of the front and back of a check with their smart phone and then upload the images for deposit through their online-banking application. Chase announced on Thursday that it would start a pilot program in October offering mobile capture to insurance agents, wholesale food vendors, and other distributors, and non-profits.
The new service will enable those organizations to accept checks from customers and donors and deposit them using Chase’s mobile-capture app for smart phones rather than having to go to a branch.
Far down on the asset scale from Chase is Mountain America Credit Union, a West Jordan, Utah-based institution with $2.8 billion in assets, 350,000 members, and 60 branches in four states. After introducing an online deposit service in 2006, Mountain America in July launched a mobile capture service that already has pulled in more than $1 million in deposits this month, more than double August’s deposits.
As more customers purchase smart phones, and consider various forms of self-service banking, mobile remote deposit capture has the potential to capture a sizeable share of the self-service deposit market. This movement would be the latest example of customers choosing to bank via multiple channels, such as online banking and mobility. Such a shift could reduce deposit volume at the branch and ATM channels, and reduce costs and improve efficiencies for FIs.
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