Capital One adds remote deposit to ‘no hassle’ banking lineup

Capital One has added yet another dimension to the company’s “no hassle” approach to banking.

Commercial and business-banking customers no longer have to stand in long lines at the bank to deposit checks; it can all be done by the touch of a button and the click of a mouse.

Capital One’s new Remote Deposit feature allows commercial-banking customers to deposit digital images of checks versus the original paper copies. All businesses need is a computer, scanner and a high-speed Internet connection. Capital One will provide the software and ensures that connections and transmissions are highly secure.

This is a revolutionary step in the banking industry, said David Frady, executive vice-president of Capital One’s commercial banking.

Some traditional aspects of deposits still remain, including endorsing the back of all checks and totaling the deposit.

“Remote Deposit makes sense for businesses of any size that receive payments by check and spend significant time and other resources transporting checks to the bank and making in-person deposits,” Frady said.

After the checks are scanned and sent to Capital One, they recommend keeping the original copy of the checks for 14 days, said Frady. After that, paper copies should be destroyed but keeping electronic files of each deposit are advised.

“So far the response to this has been fantastic,“ Frady said. “This is by far the fastest growing product we have.”

Remote deposit was developed after the implementation of Check 21, the homeland security-based federal law that allows check images to be transmitted electronically instead of requiring the exchange of actual paper checks.

“Historically, physical checks had to clear by traveling from bank to bank. If you wrote a check in Portland, Oregon from a Louisiana-based account, that check would have to travel across the country to be cleared,” Frady said. “It was a terribly inefficient process that has been done since the inception of banking.”

Capital One has 14 locations located throughout the Tri-parish region.