USAA Bank customers can deposit cheques by iPhone

Posted by admin on August 30, 2009 in category: Business, bank

The New York Times reports that United Services Automobile Association (USAA), a privately held bank and insurance company in Texas, is updating its iPhone app to let customers deposit cheques by taking a picture of them with an iPhone.

The updated application will use the iPhone’s camera to photograph both sides of a check. The photograph is then sent to the bank for deposit by pressing the send button. The deposit will be handled entirely electronically, and the bank suggests voiding the cheque and filing or discarding it. To reduce fraud, only customers who are eligible for credit and have some type of insurance through USAA will be permitted to use the deposit feature.

“We’re essentially taking an image of the check, and once you hit the send button, that image is going into our deposit-taking system as any other check would,” USAA Executive Vice President Wayne Peacock told the NYTimes.

The free USAA application is available from the Apple App Store.