Using Mobile Phones to Make Remote Check Deposits

Mitek's ImageNet Mobile Deposit supports the payments industry standards for remote check deposit, and extends mobile payments and deposit capabilities to millions of consumers who use camera-equipped mobile phones. According to estimates from industry analysts, more than 600 million camera-equipped mobile phones shipped worldwide in 2007, with more than 100 million camera-equipped mobile phones shipped in the U.S.

Remote deposit has proven extremely popular with commercial and retail banking customers for its ability to reduce the amount of trips to a local banking branch. Commercial installations of remote deposit workstations will grow from 245,000 in 2007 to 785,000 this year and more than 5 million in 2012, according to data from Celent, a financial technology analyst firm, as quoted in the July issue of DigitalTransactions magazine. A recent survey conducted by MQA Research on behalf of CheckFree Corp., also found consumer interest very high. Nearly half of survey respondents indicated they would use a mobile banking and payments application if it were offered.

"Remote deposit technology is proven and is enjoying accelerating adoption, but the hardware cost makes it a non-starter for consumers," said Bob Meara, senior analyst, Celent, LLC. "Mitek Systems makes remote deposit technology affordable and ubiquitous using camera-equipped mobile phones. This will help banks retain existing customers and compete for new customers -- even when they don't have a comparable branch footprint."

"Currently, mobile banking customers can check balances, pay electronic bills and transfer funds, ImageNet Mobile Deposit is the next logical component in the electronic wallet," said James DeBello, CEO Mitek Systems. "Now banks can offer the full suite of core retail banking services anytime and anywhere, without a computer."

ImageNet Mobile Deposit works with virtually all mobile and smart phones equipped with a two-megapixel camera running on Microsoft Windows Mobile or the Symbian operating system. It supports application platforms based on Microsoft .NET and J2ME. For a complete list of compatible mobile phone and software technical specifications, http://www.miteksystems.com/in_mobile.asp

Using the application is simple. Users download ImageNet Mobile Deposit to their camera-equipped mobile phone. To make a deposit, the user initiates a mobile banking session, keys in the deposit amount, and snaps a photo of the front and back of the check. The software captures the images and recognizes and extracts the check's Courtesy Amount and Legal Amount (CAR/LAR). Before transmitting data to the bank, ImageNet Mobile Deposit confirms the check images meet Check 21 accepted image quality standards. Once the bank's system receives the deposit, it sends the customer a confirmation text message. Paying paper bills follow a similar approach. The user snaps a photo of the payment coupon and keys the payment amount and specifies payment date. The application automatically extracts payment data and delivers it to the bank. Once the bank's system receives the deposit, it also sends the customer a confirmation text message.