Remote Deposit hits $15 million

The new Remote Deposit service being made available to businesses by the Michigan Retailers Association and Michigan Bankers Association has processed more than $15 million in checks and is growing rapidly.

Remote Deposit enables businesses and their financial institutions to reduce the time and cost of depositing and processing checks by allowing businesses to make deposits from their offices or homes.

“Processing $15 million in business checks in the program’s first year confirms that Remote Deposit meets a need in today’s business world,” said James P. Hallan, MRA president and CEO.

With a Remote Deposit system, a business uses a rapid image scanner to convert checks from paper to electronic images. It then sends the deposit to the bank of its choosing, via the Internet using secure and encrypted software, where the check is received and deposited into the appropriate account. The system also links the bank to major check-clearing channels, allowing faster access to the funds by financial institutions and depositors.

Bill Petres, of Barron Catalog in Novi, says the service is helping Barron save money in several ways. For Petres, the biggest advantage is the ability to find out about bad checks in four to five days rather than two to three weeks with traditional banking.

“That allows us to hold off on shipping an order until we know whether a check is good,” said Petres. “So our actual losses due to bad checks are almost zero now.”

“We’re also saving more than $400 a month that we formerly spent on a check verification service, since we no longer need it,” he added.

Rob Leonard, director of membership for the Retail Council of New York State and one of the early adopters of MRA’s service, is also extremely satisfied with the service.

“Remote Deposit saves us several hours of labor every week, and we have had absolutely no problems with it,” said Leonard. “Even when a check is not readable, the software shows exactly what to do and it’s easy to move through the process.”

In addition to eliminating the need for a bank run and reduced risk of check fraud, the Remote Deposit system provides online review of deposits, account activity and other valuable reports.

While check writing by consumers has declined in recent years, over 33 billion checks were written in the U.S. in 2006, according to the Federal Reserve.

For additional information about Remote Deposit, call MRA at 800.366.3699.