The Check Is In The E-Mail
Most people don’t think about what happens to a check once you deposit it at the bank, but during the late 90′s a friend of mine worked for a company that was responsible for processing many of these checks. During that time, electronic checks still weren’t mainstream, but as technology moved forward, she had a first hand look at how dangerous technology can be to an industry that doesn’t quite know how to evolve.
As electronic banking has continued to grow in popularity, it’s had a devasting effect on the check processing business. While this trend, eventually cost my friend her job, it’s also made it easier and quicker for consumers to be able to pay their bills. As more and more transactions have moved to an electronic format, banks have seen significant cost savings from not having to physically process these checks.
In an effort to make it even easier for their customers to deposit their checks, USAA bank is initiating a program where you can scan a physical check and have it deposited electronically into your account by emailing it to the bank. USAA has adopted this strategy in part, to address the limited number of physical locations that they have, but I’m sure that it will also help to reduce their costs.
While I hate to see technology impact people’s livelihood, at the same time when consumers can win and businesses can save money, there are real advantages to these sorts of technological shifts. Initially, USAA may be the only one experimenting with this new form of depositing money, but if their program proves to be a success, we could see more major banks jump on board in order to save on costs. As the internet continues to radically transform every industry that it comes in contact with, it will be fascinating to watch how different industries react.
Posted on February 1st, 2007 by Davis
Filed under: Technology
It’s a really interesting idea. The idea of technology taking away people jobs reminds me of toll-booth workers who are out of a job because of EZPass.
In a situation like that, consumers win, the gov’t wins, but the gov’t employees lose.
I think it’s unfortunate when technology displaces workers, but in the case of my friend, the transition ended up forcing her into doing something that she loves much more instead. Sometimes, it’s hard to make these changes, but more times then not, it works out. The tough part was really for the business owners who saw multi-millions of dollars wiped out by this shift.