I don’t know how I missed this small, but meaningful, improvement to the remote deposit state of the art. Since last April, Capital One 360 (formerly ING Direct) has allowed customers to make deposit via the mobile phone app, and (drum roll) via file upload.
Yes, you heard it right. Simply snap a picture of the check (front and back), save the files, upload to CapOne360, and your deposit is complete (see screenshot below). That means check deposit is available to everyone, not just those with smartphones or scanners.
Does that mean more work for Capital One operations? Sure, processing an uploaded .jpg will take more time. But for the relatively low deposit volume of its savings-account-heavy base, it’s probably not material. And the idea here is to get more deposits, not save on transaction costs.
Will there be more fraud? There will likely be more garbage (duplicate pictures, fuzzy images, and perhaps even a few suspicious attempts to deposit duplicate images). But will file uploads create a statistically significant amount of actual fraud losses? It seems unlikely, though I’m making an educated guess.
Bottom line: The decision to accept any old .jpg was brilliant. Make it as easy as possible to do business with you. That’s been a driving force behind ING Direct’s success (that and the bouncing orange ball, RIP).
While it’s not going to make our Digital Banking Hall of Fame (note 1), it’s important enough to grab a belated OBR Best of the Web for “raising the bar” in remote banking (note 2). Nice work.
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Capital One 360 landing page for its CheckMate remote deposit service (22 Mar 2013)
Step 1: Users must enter check amount ($) and which account to deposit to (and optional memo)
Step 2: Interim instruction page
Step 3: Agree to the terms and conditions
Step 4: Choose images for front and back of check
Note: Example images, since I didn’t have any checks on my machine
Step 5: Review images & click “Deposit Now”
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Notes:
1. The Digital Banking Hall of Fame is updated annually and published in our year-end Online Banking Report (subscription).
2. Since 1997, our Online Banking Report has periodically given OBR Best of the Web awards to companies that pioneer new online- or mobile-banking features. It is not an endorsement of the company or product, just recognition for what we believe is an important industry development. In total, 89 companies have won the award. This is the second for Capital One (previous winner). ING Direct also won previously. Recent winners are profiled in the Netbanker archives.