Apartment Therapy Unplugged | Blogging the NY Times: Scanning Your Money to the Bank

Blogging the NY Times: Scanning Your Money to the Bank

2008_02_08 cash.jpg We have a large pile of checks sitting on our desk that we have not got around to depositing. It could be because we are just lazy, but the reality is that we do pretty much all our banking online now.

Being able to deposit checks without actually going to the bank removes the last barrier for true online banking in our opinion. While this service has been available for small and medium business as well as the military before, it has not been available to the everyday consumer. All that someone needs to do now is type in the amount to be deposited on the banks website, scan the front and back of the check and consider the deposit done. Nice and easy. Does anyone have experience depositing checks this way?

-via The NY Times

Comments (1)

Yes, I do. The bank is USAA, and as far as I know, you have to be in the military (or retired) to bank "there." I put that in quotes because I've never been to the branch physically. Geographically, I think it's in San Antonio.

The scanning and depositing system is really, really cool. As long as you print neatly, it's great. You sign your name, and then write "for deposit only to USAA savings bank account number 123456789". Type in the amount of the check, scan the front, rotate and crop the picture as needed, scan the back, repeat edits if needed, and you're done. I've deposited personal checks as well as government-issued checks. It's never given me a hard time about any of them. And, the money is shown in your account instantly.

I'm not sure if this would fly for average folks though...because all of the users are in the military, we're all very easily "accessible" if someone decides to try to hack the system. I just think that far too many people would try to take advantage of it, and this wouldn't make it worthwhile for the bank.

posted by sgt_easton on February 12th 2008 at 2:54pm
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