Coming Soon: Depositing Cheques at Home by Scanner

Saul Hansel, one of my favorite NYTimes reporters, writes about Fiserv’s technology that’ll let normal people deposit paper cheques to their bank accounts by merely scanning them at home.

USAA, the bank that serves the armed forces, has done this for a while, but it hasn’t picked up beyond there. Although the Cheque Clearing for the 21st Century Act has made this possible, and half of all business cheques are deposited this way already, the system still needs to be safeguarded against fraud before it can really reach mainstream adoption rates. Interesting, but I’d guess the majority of Gizmodo readers use PayPal or World of Warcraft gold pieces instead of ye old chequebook. [NYT Bits]