It may seem too good to be true, but a depository institution service authorized by a 2004 federal law ? familiarly known as “Check 21” ? can eliminate those frantic office-branch dashes to deposit the day?s check receipts before the business day ends.
And it extends by hours the deadline for doing so.
“The customer response has been very positive,” John Goedeke, a Provident Bank senior vice president, said of the bank?s recently launched remote deposit service for its business customers. “We?ve never had a product with this kind of response.”
The service, Goedeke explained, features proprietary software and a special scanner that, for a “very affordable” monthly maintenance and per item fee, are placed in subscribing customers? offices. The equipment converts paper checks into authenticated formats ? called “image replacement documents” ? for deposit into a single account. The transaction is then completed over the Internet and immediately credited.
“It?s definitely on its way,” Fritz Elmendorf, Consumer Bankers Association vice president, said of remote deposit. “I?m hearing more and more about it.”
“As businesses continually look for ways to become more efficient and productive, we are pleased to become part of the solution,” Goedeke added, saying that competitors were also offering the service.
“But we?re one of the few banks in our asset size [to do so],” said Vicki Cox, spokesperson for the $6.4 billion-asset, Baltimore-based community bank.
Weighing in at about 15 times Provident?s asset size, Pittsburgh-based PNC Bank, which recently increased its Maryland market posture with a pending $6 billion purchase of Mercantile Bankshares Corporation, has been offering the remote deposit service since late 2005.
“We have well over 250 clients already using this application,” said PNC Bank Senior Vice President Bert Sciulli, who, like Goedeke, described pricing in general terms. “Most major banks are offering this service, and there are community banks that can do it as well. There’s a very low entry capital expense to get this up and running.”
“For us it?s been great,” Brian Pfeifer, chief operating officer of Payce Inc., a Towson payroll and tax filing company, said of Provident?s new service. “It really has had a significant impact. It?s a time-saving and efficiency [plus] that has really played out for us.”
According to a 2005 Independent Community Bankers of America survey, only 4 percent of its 5,000 members offered remote deposit services, but 41 percent were planning to do so in 2006.
