Charles Schwab Corp. and Fidelity Investments have rolled out mobile check deposit services to their customers.
Schwab on Thursday added the feature to its iPhone app and said it plans to add it to an app it released Thursday for smartphones running Google Inc.'s Android software.
Customers of the San Francisco company can make deposits into bank and brokerage accounts by taking a picture of the front and back of a check.
Fidelity also added the feature to existing apps for Apple Inc.'s iPhone and Android smartphones, the Boston company said Tuesday.
Teresa Epperson, a partner with the consulting firm Mercatus LLC in Boston, said that for financial institutions like Schwab and Fidelity, which have few branches, the service could help them better compete with banks with large retail footprints.
"For those big national brands that don't have the national physical presence, deposit taking has always been the Achilles' heel around how to deal with that in a way that lends itself to a positive customer experience," Epperson said.
