Technology comes to the old fashioned check

I am sure many of you have seen the Bank of America commercials with their slick "deposit automation" features where you feed your check directly into the ATM machine and it prints the check image right on your ATM receipt. Those images are then available via your on-line access.

These new ATM machines from Diebold are part of how the banking industry is applying technology to improve their efficiency, which will help their bottom line (and maybe hold down some of those outrageous fees).

Another good example of applying technology is USAA's Deposit@Home which allows you to scan in checks from your home scanner and "deposit" the images into your account. This not only saves your bank money, but saves you the time from going to the bank or finding a friendly ATM.

Now as a technologist, I always like to take note when technology delivers great business value, but in all fairness there is a certain amount of negative postings and comments about some of this automation. The tone of these comments indicate there may be a few glitches still to be worked out, such as the inherent inefficiency of having to feed in each check individually vs. stuffing them all into a single envelope and processing them all at once. One only needs to look at the trade-offs we make with cell phones to see we are willing to trade off some quality and reliability for the right amount of convenience.

When an old fashioned processes like check processing can benefit from technology it is time to think about all of the things we do day to day and find ways to advantage of technology in new ways to improve their efficiency and your bottom line. If nothing else, be sure you take advantage of the efficiencies your bank is offering you.