By the end of next year, the majority of Americans will have access to mobile remote deposit capture — so says Mitek Systems, RDC purveyor.
Imaging company Mitek has been pushing for banks to adopt its technologies, especially RDC, for years, and Scott Carter, the company’s chief marketing officer, predicts 2014 is the year the majority of banks in the US will take their advice.
Mitek operates the technology behind much of the advances in image-based banking such as mobile photo bill pay, which allows users to pay bills by taking a picture of paper bills and automatically importing that information into their bill pay service. US Bank became the first large bank to offer this service in March 2013, and only a few banks have joined it so far.
The company also launched mobile photo account-opening this fall, which allows user to open accounts using mobile device photos of driver’s licenses and other supporting documents. Mitek’s software imports the data and makes sense of it to populate the required account fields.
Earlier this week Mitek offered predictions for how 2014 will change banking, and though the predictions sound like a wish list for the San Diego-based company, it’s hard to dispute that the smartphone camera has changed banking, and that Mitek deserves much of the credit.
“Banks need to think ahead and anticipate customer needs,” Scott Carter told Bank Innovation. “Banks will need to invest in mobile as a unique channel.”
Many customers are moving from a mobile-first mindset to mobile-only, so banks should offer services that allow consumers to do everything through mobile channel, including account-opening. Mobile deposit account-opening will at least double, Carter predicts. “Parity with other channels is no longer enough for mobile,” Carter said.
The majority of banks will offer remote deposit by the end of next year, Carter said. This is a bold claim, given that just 1,400 out of 7,000 or so US banks offer it today. Of those 1,400, 800 are live with their solutions. But at the end of 2012 just 550 or so banks offered RDC, so there is no doubt adoption is increasing at a rapid pace.
“Limits for RDC will be relaxed in 2014, and this will accelerate usage, ” Carter said, adding that he expects 40 million users of RDC the end of 2014. Some banks cap RDC deposits at $500, and others — notably mobile-only newcomer GoBank — hold deposited checks for as long as 10 days. “Banks are increasingly adopting a fact-based approach to relaxing mobile deposit restrictions,” he said. “Fraud on RDC is actually very low.”
Some banks say that mobile is the safest channel because of all the data attached to mobile transactions, Carter said. Banks know the reputation of the device, the location and whether it is trusted, and are able to make intelligent risk assessments based on that.
“There are no discernible differences in losses due to differing deposit limits,” Carter said.
Mitek’s sunny view of 2014 is perhaps darkened by what transpired with deposit limits in 2013 — which is nothing. CEO Jim DeBello discussed ideas for working with banks to lower deposit limits with Bank Innovation in January 2013, but this year saw few changes, despite rising adoption.
Mitek reported that revenue for its fiscal 2013 is up 63% to $14.8 million over last year.