Remote cheque deposit capture from home is a newcomer to the US
banking scene but one Bob Meara, a senior analyst at consultancy
Celent, believes will see “targeted but significant adoption”. And
it is a market in which billpay specialist CheckFree, a unit of
financial services technology vendor Fiserv, intends gaining an
early entrant advantage with its new consumer remote cheque deposit
capture offering.

CheckFree’s internet-based solution permits consumers to take
advantage of their existing scanner hardware. Cheque deposits are
executed via a financial institution’s online banking portal using
existing security methods for login identification, passwords and
data encryption during image and data transfer.

Talking up CheckFree’s solution, Fiserv Global Payments’
executive vice-president, Mike Ringuette, said: “Consumer capture
will fundamentally change the way consumers interact with their
financial institution, brokerage firm, utility or other payment
processor when depositing cheques. By offering consumer capture,
financial institutions can quickly provide an online product that
will attract new customers without regard to geographic territory,
accelerating expansion beyond their bricks-and-mortar
branches.”

Underscoring Ringuette’s optimism, Meara added that security and
convenience are driving consumers to seek new and innovative
service offerings to enhance their banking experience. “In the race
to entice and retain retail customers, the ability to offer
consumers a low-cost, simple method for remote deposit capture will
provide an advantage for banks looking to differentiate
themselves,” said Meara.

CheckFree’s solution differs from that of image analytic
technology vendor Mitek Systems’ ImageNet Mobile Deposit launched
in January this year, which utilises web-enabled camera-equipped
mobile phones for remote cheque imaging and data transfer.