Several readers contacted me yesterday with this piece of good news. After months of promising its customers to launch the new feature soon, ING Direct now offers remote check deposit. The delay was likely caused by the efforts that resulted in Capital One purchasing ING Direct USA. Previously, in order to deposit a check into an ING Direct savings or “Electric Orange” checking account, you would have needed to mail the check to a deposit address, deposit the check in a local bank branch and transfer the money to ING Direct later, or find an ATM that allowed deposits to the online bank.
Although paper checks are heading towards obsolescence and electronic person-to-person transactions are becoming more mainstream, some people still find paper checks convenient. For self-employed individuals and business owners, checks from clients are still a very common way of doing business.
Remote check deposit, where you do not need to visit a bank to deposit a check or send it through the mail and wait, is made possible by the “Check 21″ law. With the advancement of technology, an image of a check is just as legitimate as the check itself. In the last decade, banks have been providing scanners to business customers to securely scan and email check images for deposit.
This was an expensive proposition. In recent years, the process has improved, thanks again to technology. The cameras on cell phones now have enough resolution for these purposes. Rather than sending its customers large pieces of hardware, banks offer mobile phone applications — often for both iOS and Android — that use the phone’s camera and a secure internet connection to make remote deposit as easy as snapping a photograph or two.
How ING Direct’s remote deposit “CheckMate” works
I wanted to try ING Direct’s remote deposit service, but without a check written to my personal account handy, I wrote myself a check for $10, withdrawing from my local Wells Fargo account. I downloaded the ING Direct app for my Android phone and configured my account. As expected, I needed my customer number, PIN, answers to several security questions, and recognition of my secret image, similar configuring online access on a new computer.
Once logged in, “Deposit” was an option at the top of the screen, alongside my account overview and transfers. To initiate remote deposit, the software required me to read and accept the CheckMate terms and conditions. The terms included a warning that deposits will be held by the bank for up to 5 business days. This is typical for check deposits to ING Direct, so it’s not completely unexpected. It is unfortunate, as even check deposits are often considered electronic transactions. The hold doesn’t apply to payroll checks or checks from the U.S. Treasury like federal tax refunds.
Check deposits using the ING Direct software are limited to $3,000 per check. Compared with Chase Bank’s $500 limit, this is an improvement, but could still make the service useless for some customers.
Once I agreed to the terms, the software prompted me to take a photograph of first the front of the check then the back of the check. It was difficult to focus on the back of the check, so I tried twice, changing the lighting environment to try to get a photograph that was more precise and included a legible copy of my signature.
After confirming both photographs, I entered the amount of the check and selected the account in which I wanted the $10 deposited. At the end of the process, I tapped the button to deposit the check and received this response:
All done. Your deposit will be available April 30. Hang on to your check until you get an email saying it posted. Then, void it.
ING Direct did send an email notification to say that my submission was successful, but this notification did not indicate that the funds were posted. For this, I’ll need to wait for a later email. I’ll update this article once I receive the email to indicate how long it takes to post $10. I checked my account online immediately after completing the deposit, and this appeared in my transaction history:
Notice how the total “Amount” is zero; the $10 is not available for me to use yet.
How to deposit checks without a cameraphone
The above process depends on having a mobile device with a camera and an internet connection. Not everyone has a smartphone or web-enabled, camera-equipped tablet. I didn’t see it at first, but ING Direct provides an option to remotely deposit checks without a camera. After you endorse your check for deposit, take a photograph using a digital camera of the front and back of your check. You could also use a scanner. Save the front and back as two separate JPG images. Access your account online, and click on “Image Upload” under the “Transfers & Deposits” heading. The website will take you through a process similar to the above.
Overall, whether using a mobile phone or your computer, depositing a check with ING Direct is now a simple and convenient process. If receiving checks is still a part of your life, and you’re looking for a way to exclude high-cost local banks from your personal finance system in favor of online banks like ING Direct, remote deposit is a necessity. ING Direct has made good on their promise to offer this service to their users.
Hat tip to Daniel from Sweating the Big Stuff and many others, including the bank itself, who brought the news to my attention.
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If you’ve taken a modern approach to banking, with automated and electronic payments, you’ll need to start planning in advance. Here are the priorities, if you’ve already chosen your new bank. To compare banks, read through the reviews available here on Consumerism Commentary, but also consider your local community banks and credit unions.
When I received my last VISA statement it showed that I had redeemed $275 in Cashback awards — I hadn’t. I got in touch with my bank and also started looking at all of the web pages and we found the someone had added a “Transfer Account” from GE Capital Retail Bank in Draper Utah to the redemption page and apparently requested the redeemtion. The information that they had to enter was the ABA number and account number. That’s how I know which bank it is even though only the last four digits of the account number were there. How they got to the redeemtion page without going through my login (which my bank says wasn’t compromised) is a mystery.
Thanks to the Consumerism Commentary Community
This article was written by Flexo in Administration. 13 comments.
In just a short period of time, Consumerism Commentary will be entering its tenth year of existence. The site’s ninth anniversary is approaching, and I’ve been involved with the website longer than I’ve been involved with any other commitment in my life. Jobs and relationships have come and gone, but Consumerism Commentary remains.
I started the website in an effort to track my personal finances at a time when I was struggling financially, though I had already started a new path towards financial independence. Thanks to the readers early on who believed the website offered something unique, the growth of the community has been nothing short of amazing. Consumerism Commentary has changed character a little bit from those early years, when a blog was more about short, quick chronological updates and about sharing links to other interesting things found online. Last year, I solidified the website’s vision, mission, and purpose. While the owner of the site is now different, not much else has changed, and there are no plans to change anything in the near future, except for perhaps a more professional-looking logo and site design.
Thanks to all the readers who have continued to visit this website since 2003, our fans and friends on Facebook, and particularly those who continue to participate in discussions today. Thanks also to all the colleagues who have offered their advice and encouragement, and a big thanks to Jay Frosting (also known as Bryan J Busch) and Tom Dziubek who have held down the podcast fort for several years.
And if you’ve encountered any technical issues with the website recently, please continue to bear with me as the technical team continues to work out the bugs.
Last week, my article about The Rich and the Rest of Us by Dr. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley attracted the attention of the two men, and I’m working on scheduling an interview with the pair later this week. They are crusading across the country to elevate the issue of poverty and potential actions to move the United States is a better direction towards resolution. Do you have any questions for Smiley and West?
There are five types of purchases — well, more than five but these five are big — you should never put on your credit card. Every purchase you make is tracked by your credit card issuers and can be used against you if the companies decide you’re a higher risk than they originally thought. And they can change your risk profile based solely on the types of stores you visit.
The Carnival of Personal Finance hosted by Musings of an Abstract Aucklander last week included my article about Sprint’s $300 million tax fraud lawsuit.
Adrian from 7 Million 7 Years talks about how it may be hard to believe that someone in New York struggles on an income of $350,000 a year, but he understands the perspective. Andrew Schiff, who works for a brokerage firm, earns this salary but “feels stuck” according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.
Mike, the Oblivious Investor, argues that even an individual with a reduced life expectancy should wait as long as possible before collecting payments from Social Security. There are some specific circumstances in which it might be beneficial to claim Social Security benefits early, however. Mike explains within the article.
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