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Cellphones Handhelds Input Devices The Almighty Buck Technology

Coming Soon, Smartphone-Based Banking 187

An anonymous reader writes "Banks will be offering a new service at the end of the year that will let customers take a photo of a paper check and have it be deposited in their bank accounts, making the smartphone one step closer to an ATM."
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Coming Soon, Smartphone-Based Banking

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  • DUPE (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Thursday March 18, 2010 @03:23PM (#31528086) Homepage
    This is a dupe from like 2 days ago, which was a dupe from like 6 months ago. USAA has been allowing this for months and months with the iPhone.
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by sakdoctor ( 1087155 )

      The system still has bugs.

      I took a photo of my ass crack using my phone, and the next day I had and extra $10,000 in my account.

      • by Cryacin ( 657549 )

        I took a photo of my ass crack using my phone, and the next day I had and extra $10,000 in my account.

        If it would withdraw $10k from your account, it would be considered a feature.

      • by ls671 ( 1122017 )

        > I took a photo of my ass crack using my phone, and the next day I had and extra $10,000 in my account.

        You can achieve the same by just depositing a blank sheet of paper at an ATM pretending it is a 10,000$ check.

        In a few days, they will adjust your account ;-))

        Note that only the amount you have set as credit limit on your account is available for withdraw in the mean time.

    • Re:DUPE (Score:5, Informative)

      by GiovanniZero ( 1006365 ) on Thursday March 18, 2010 @03:29PM (#31528226) Homepage Journal
      Mod parent up, I'm on usaa and I've been depositing my checks using my iphone and now my android phone for about a year now.
      • And has it occurred to you yet that a neat way to embezzle from companies that send you checks is with photoshop?

        FTA: "The photo gets sent to the bank through its mobile application. In most cases, funds are in the customers account immediately."

        Coming soon: iPhone customers get e-mails of photos of large checks from overseas customers, with an offer of 10% of the check in return for "check cashing services" and wire transferring back the balance.

        • Re:DUPE (Score:4, Informative)

          by TheDawgLives ( 546565 ) <http://www.suckitdown.org> on Thursday March 18, 2010 @04:22PM (#31529128) Homepage Journal
          Most companies have to pre-authorize checks before they will clear. The company sends the check number and amount to their bank. When you deposit said check, your bank sends the check number and amount to the company's bank, that bank notices that the check number a) has not been authorized or b) does not match the authorized amount and notifies your bank to remove deposited amount from your account. You fail and probably go to jail.
          • And for your going to jail, some guy in Nigeria gets a large wire transfer that went out in the mean time- that's the problem with funds being available in the account immediately.

        • Of course, I always want to steal from people that know who I am and where I live.
        • And has it occurred to you yet that a neat way to embezzle from companies that send you checks is with photoshop?

          Larger companies use something called Positive Pay that prevents this:

          ABC Company issues approximately 600 checks each Friday. After the checks are cut, ABC Company transmits to their bank, First Bank, a list of the checks that they issued (check number and dollar amount). This list is imported into First Bank's computer.

          Later, when the checks are presented to First Bank for payment, First Bank matches each check presented against ABC's previously transmitted lists. If the presented checks' numbers and amounts appear on a previously submitted list, the check is sent through for payment. If both items do not match, the check is not cleared.

          So you'd just be defrauding your own bank that you deposit at, and I think you can guess how that will end.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by mjwx ( 966435 )

        Mod parent up, I'm on usaa and I've been depositing my checks using my iphone and now my android phone for about a year now.

        People are still using cheques, how quaint. I haven't seen one in years.

        Do fax me your reply, I'll send something back via telegraph or the fastest Royal Mail steamer.

    • Re:DUPE (Score:4, Informative)

      by penguinchris ( 1020961 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `sirhcniugnep'> on Thursday March 18, 2010 @03:30PM (#31528250) Homepage

      It's not like it was an article that slipped under the radar, either... it has close to 500 comments. Easily one of the worst slashdot dupes I can recall :)

    • Even in the USA ... how popular will this be, really?

      I got about ten checks last year. Five were from a place that had the option for direct deposit (but it took a while for it to kick in). The rest were birthday/christmas presents (so it's only 2 trips to the bank).

      Anybody getting a serious number of checks won't bother with this service (taking them to the bank is much easier). Only a small percentage will fall in-between, where they get enough checks to make it a feature worth having and not too many

      • Even getting only one check in a year makes this feature worthwhile, imo. Why make a special trip to the bank to drop a check when you can just take a picture of it and be done with it? It's even handier for banks like USAA who don't have much (if any) physical branch presence.
      • by babyrat ( 314371 )

        Even in the USA ... how popular will this be, really?

        Perhaps you and your friends don't get cheques often, but a lot of people do. I get cheques from my tenants every month. I have several friends who also own rental properties - they get a few cheques per month as well.

        Those cheques are generally the only reason I have to go to the bank. If i paid $50 for an app for my phone to avoid those trips, it would be a bargain.

        Other people that would like would be perhaps private daycare places - 8-10 cheques per

    • Any banks other than USAA feature this currently? AFAIK, USAA only accepts military members, prior military members, and families of military members as customers.
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by horatio ( 127595 )
        USAA will accept non-military customers. However, the services they provide are severely limited. The only deposit method is a transfer from another bank, visiting a USAA branch in person, or snail-mailing in your checks.

        The reason, they explained to me, is that in order to qualify for the "photographic" (scanned image, or iPhone app) deposits, you must have (or qualify for?) three specific services with them including some type of line of credit, insurance, and something else. If you're non-military,
        • Small clarification: If you're a direct relative (child, spouse) of someone who has served you do get those services.
          • by horatio ( 127595 )
            Correct. I should also clarify that my relationship w/ USAA is civilian and independent, not anything to do w/ my brother-in-law other than knowing of USAA b/c he talked about it.
          • by bsDaemon ( 87307 )

            My grandfather was a Navy officer from 1936-1942 (medically discharged after Pearl Harbor), and my mom's dad was in 75th infantry. Neither my father nor my mother were in the military, but qualify for USAA, and I qualify for USAA, too... and they constantly try and sell me services. So they take grand kids, too.

        • Alliant Credit Union [alliantcreditunion.org] allows scanned image upload deposit ("eDeposit Plus"). I am hopeful they will jump on the smartphone app bandwagon, though one imagines that a user could take the requisite photographs and then upload them via the Alliant eDeposit interface even today.

          Tangential rant: I am in the same situation as you. USAA burned me on the Deposit@Home service with their misleading website. I opened a USAA credit card *solely* to satisfy the "line of credit" requirement for D@H (yes, the site said a
          • by horatio ( 127595 )
            I might look into that. My CU has a similar deposit service, but no iPhone app, and it it is a 9 step process including snail mailing in the check w/ a written confirmation # after you submit the image. And there was some weird rule about having to put the check in the mail within 24 hours or something. Completely asinine. I can drive to an ATM and deposit the check there in 3 steps. I told them as much.
    • Mod parent up... oh and the USAA app supports Android too.

    • I feel like I've lived through this deja vu moment before.

    • by nilbog ( 732352 )

      And Android phones.

    • by mdwh2 ( 535323 )

      Well, be fair - it makes up for all the Iphone dupes we get about things that other phones have been doing for years and years...

    • by sootman ( 158191 )

      You know what though? Remember years ago, when Slashdot used to have some dupes? And then it got pretty bad for a while and was like a total joke? I remember once seeing the same story twice on the homepage, about 4 stories apart. And it would've been so trivial to implement a dupe-checking system--search for stories by keyword and URL and a couple other things would catch 99% of them. Anyway, this is, I think, the third dupe I've seen in... six months? I don't know but it's been a LONG while since the bad

  • deja vu (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Thursday March 18, 2010 @03:23PM (#31528090)
    all over again
  • ... only without the cell phone, but with a scanner device of some sort. It's nice to see the technology expand, but one worries about the enhanced potential for check fraud under this new scheme.
  • Ditch checks! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mseidl ( 828824 ) on Thursday March 18, 2010 @03:24PM (#31528106) Homepage
    I've lived both in Europe and the USA, and I have to say, ditch the checks. Seriously. It's a joke and a pain in the ass.
    • If I buy something from someone impromptu for greater than the amount of cash I carry, I can always use a check. Wirelessly, No internet required. Not everyone has a smart phone and can log in to PayPal or their bank anytime they want to send money.
      -
      If you dupe the articles, I'll just dupe my comments.

    • It's a joke and a pain in the ass.

      So is the $4.50 transaction fee my power company wants to charge me for an online credit/debit card transaction. A check costs me 44 cents to mail.
    • Ditching using checks is great, not accepting checks as payment is not so much.
  • USAA (Score:4, Informative)

    by Scyth3 ( 988321 ) on Thursday March 18, 2010 @03:24PM (#31528108)
    USAA does this already. It's not "coming soon", it's already here. It's more or less who's still catching up.
  • by hilldog ( 656513 ) on Thursday March 18, 2010 @03:28PM (#31528204)
    Chexting? ;-)
  • Checks?! (Score:3, Funny)

    by while(true) ( 626738 ) on Thursday March 18, 2010 @03:30PM (#31528248)
    You americans are funny!
  • by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Thursday March 18, 2010 @03:36PM (#31528366)

    No? Really. Taking a photo of a cheque?

    Writing out a cheque, then taking a photo of it? No. You're pulling my leg. And this is an advance?

    Why not just transfer the money using the phone?

    We can do it here in Europe. They can do it in India and Africa for goodness sake;

    http://europe.nokia.com/ovi-services-and-apps/nokia-money [nokia.com]

     

    • by Jeng ( 926980 )

      Do you get a paper check from your employer?

      We do use direct deposit a lot here in the US, but some people just prefer checks.

      Just because checks are available it does not mean that the other options are not available.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Dionysus ( 12737 )

        Do you get a paper check from your employer?

        No

      • Do you get a paper check from your employer?

        We do use direct deposit a lot here in the US, but some people just prefer checks.

        Just because checks are available it does not mean that the other options are not available.

        A staggering number of people don't have a place to get direct deposits sent..

        The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) released a survey on American households that are “unbanked” - have neither a checking account nor a savings account, and “underbanked” - have a checking account or savings account but rely on alternative financial services. Alternative financial services can include using a non-bank check cashing service, non-bank money order service or a payday loan service.

        There is an estimated 9 million households that do not have a checking account or savings account which is 7.7 percent of U.S. households.

        In addition to the unbanked households, there are an estimated 21 million households that are underbanked which is 17.9 percent of U.S. households

    • Reduce costs of toady s operations by enabling e.g. mobile prepaid top up transactions

      lol. I did however like this statement. If it goes through a spell and grammar checker it must be right.

       

    • This isn't for people in the modern age that transfer money to others.

      This is for people in the modern age that still get checks from people who would rather avoid electronic methods for whatever reason.

      Is transfering money over the phone the only way you can make a purchase in Europe and Africa? Whats that? You guys have checks too? No shit? So this is probably something that'll happen there too?

      God, when will people like you realize that now days every place on Earth is more or less the same as ever o

    • by babyrat ( 314371 )

      Writing out a cheque, then taking a photo of it? No. You're pulling my leg. And this is an advance?

      No, not writing out a cheque and taking a photo of it.

      Receiving a cheque from a third party, and depositing it via a photo.

      For someone so high tech, you might want to work on your comprehension skills.

  • "This phone will charge your account a $1.50 fee to make this call. This fee is on top of any other fees that may be charged by the phone to which you are dialing."
  • What types of checks are allowed? Is it all types? Personal and Paychecks?

    Can you deposit a money order or cashiers check?

    Is there a fee? I'm sure there is.

    How long is there a delay between submitting and getting your money?
  • I went to renew my subscription to a magazine on the Internet. Guess what? Cost me $2 to do it that way. No dice. Wrote out a check and mailed it in.

    • I went to renew my subscription to a magazine on the Internet. Guess what? Cost me $2 to do it that way. No dice. Wrote out a check and mailed it in.

      You can thank exorbitant credit card interchange fees on the part of the Visa/MasterCard member banks for that. It costs pennies to process a check of virtually any size, but 1.2 - 3.6+% to accept various credit cards.

  • Seriously, there are just so many more fraud opportunities dues to sheer bloody laziness on the part of the banks and their customers. Identity theft? Couldn't happen so readily if the banks would only make you come in there with your driver's license or passport before they go issuing credit cards. The same goes for government institutions.
    This idea sounds like it'd make it easy to copy a cheque, Photoshop it and bank it. You wouldn't even need to steal it. Just snap a quick shot with your iPhone and then

    • I love all these posts that think making me show a driver's license is the ultimate answer to everything. Here's a different solution. How about holding the banks liable for everything beyond the first $50 of fraudulent transactions, like the law requires, and quit burdening the rest of us otherwise law-abiding citizens with showing ID cards that wont prevent the fraud anyway.

    • by ross.w ( 87751 )

      The thing is, it's in the Bank's interest to NOT have you go to the bank. If they can come up with ways of having you do your banking online, by phone, or by post, they can close branches, save money and no-one will care.

      Here in Australia, the big four banks actually charge you a fee if you want to do something actually at the bank.

      Mind you they charge you a fee for just about everything...

  • I'll just take several pictures of the same check, and by the time they figure it out, I'll have my pay day loan (i.e. already spent then over-drafted). Woo hoo! Rent-town-USA here I come!

  • Seriously, if you Yanks think this is the epitome of modern banking: we Europeans are doubling up in laughter here.

    We do things completely electronic here, by direct bank transfers. No need to take photographs of a paper cheque. In fact, I haven't seen a cheque since childhood (when an aunt from Australia sent one. We had a hell of a trouble cashing it).
    • Seriously, if you Yanks think this is the epitome of modern banking: we Europeans are doubling up in laughter here.

      Seriously, that's because that's your default response due to your (IMO mistaken) belief that the way Europeans do anything is automagically superior to anyone else's way of doing things. And you'll tell that you anyone who stand still long enough to listen.

      And then, like the hypocritical bastards you are, you'll whine when anyone else does the same thing.

      We do things completel

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      We do things completely electronic here, by direct bank transfers. No need to take photographs of a paper cheque. In fact, I haven't seen a cheque since childhood (when an aunt from Australia sent one. We had a hell of a trouble cashing it).

      Even here in Australia, the state of wait a while have given up on paper cheques. Everyone charges extra for a cheque now because no one wants to issue them, faster and easier to sign a declaration and get it wired into your bank.

  • by dltaylor ( 7510 ) on Thursday March 18, 2010 @04:18PM (#31529068)

    With automatic electronic transfers between banks, which do not verify the validity of the original check, the person who's going to be screwed by this is the one whose account number is on the fake check. Right now washing out a check, putting in new amounts, and presenting it for cash is a little bit more time-consuming (plus the check is gone) than just photoshopping a check image and scanning it on a phone, or several. The only small deterrent is that the checks are deposited, not paid out in cash immediately. Simple enough to hit up a few pensioners while there's still a bit in their account (or businesses that don't reconcile accounts frequently), wait for the deposits to clear, and clean out the temporary deposit account.

    • by blair1q ( 305137 )

      "The only small deterrent is that the checks are deposited"

      That's not a small deterrent, it's a huge one. Opening a bank account at a bank that will accept RDC will take more than your fake ID, whereas passing a forged check to a merchant takes nothing more than your fake ID.

    • ... wait for the deposits to clear ...

      I think I've found your problem... The whole point of cashing a fake check is that you don't need to wait for it to clear.

  • Slashdot will be offering a new service at the end of the year that will let users take a photo of an article summary and have it reposted within two days, making the smartphone one step closer to replacing editors.
  • We've been doing smartphone based banking over over 10 years now.. Nordea (Swedish/Finnish bank) launched mobile on-line banking service in January 2000. Granted, you didn't call handsets "smart phones" and they weren't as shiny as iPhone (Nokia 7110 [wikipedia.org] for instance) and the service was (and is, I guess the service is still running) based on WAP [wikipedia.org] instead of HTTP over TCP/IP but still it was smartphone based banking of the time. Source: Nordea Annual Report 2000 [nordea.com], page 4. Personally, I've been doing all my person
  • I love my bank (USAA). They have been providing this for like 2+ years now.
    On their online banking website they have an option to credit a check into your account with a scanner.
    It downloads a Java app that controls your scanner directly.
    Its so great. Even the money is in your account and usable immediately the check has been scanned in.

  • My bank is offering it to me for months!

    But it’s not as if I were stupid enough to use it!

    Needs a whatcouldpossiblygowrong tag.

  • Club made from silicon!

    Seriously. Using a cellphone to fotograph a fscking check? And that's called "smartphone-based banking"? I've been able to do my banking over the internet for almost a decade now, and I'm a late adopter. And the last time I had to use a check was over twenty years ago.

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