Wells Fargo & Co. on Monday introduced a remote-capture imaging service that could soon find its way into applications available to a wide range of consumers.
Wells says the main difference between its new service and earlier remote-capture options is that it moves the processing upstream to the bank's servers. The effect of that, the company says, is to simplify installation and upgrades.
Other banks have services that let corporate customers deposit checks by converting them to images and transmitting the image files. Electronic Deposit, Wells Fargo's name for the service aimed at larger customers, is designed for corporations that have image scanning equipment. A related service, Desktop Deposit is aimed at smaller businesses that would use a check scanner provided by the bank.
"It's going to change the game a little bit, we believe," said Danny Peltz, the executive vice president of wholesale Internet and treasury solutions at the San Francisco banking company. "The differentiator is going to be the service levels you can give your depositors."
Another application of the service is already emerging - one that could suggest a consumer-oriented use. 7-Eleven Inc. is incorporating the technology into its fleet of Vcom automated teller machines as part of its plan to offer more banking services to customers.
Rick Updyke, the vice president of business development at 7-Eleven, said it is using the technology to accelerate settlement of checks that customers cash through its proprietary Vcom kiosks. The convenience store chain is also in talks with several financial services companies about accepting deposits that originate at the ATM-like Vcom units, Mr. Updyke said; he hopes to have agreements by yearend.
Mr. Pelz said that the new services differ from other banks' systems in several key ways. One is that while others require the corporate client to install software on their computers, Wells Fargo's processing software resides on the servers that power its Commercial Electronic Office portal for corporate clients.
This is important because upgrades will not require sending new versions to every customer. Running the software on the bank's own servers will make it easier for customers to start using remote capture technology, and will therefore attract more users, Mr. Pelz said. "The ease of distribution is what drives massive adoption."
Wells plans to offer the service to all of its corporate customers by the end of the second quarter. It would enable them to deposit checks as late as 7 p.m. Pacific standard time for same-day credit; the deadline at the bank's branches is 4 p.m. Mr. Peltz said this feature is proving to be a big draw. "I have more customers lined up to pilot this than I have ever had for any project."
Wells said the Desktop Deposit service was piloted by the Semitropic Water Storage District of Wasco, Calif., which delivers water to nearly 300 agricultural customers; 7-Eleven, of Dallas, has been testing Electronic Deposit in a handful of stores.
Several banks have moved away from accepting foreign deposits at their ATMs, largely because of the cost and bother of forwarding paper checks to their competitors, though some companies, including networks of community banks and credit unions, still permit their customers to make deposits into other companies' ATMs.
7-Eleven says that converting the checks into images and forwarding them to a bank electronically will help get around that problem.
Mr. Updyke said the imaging system advances the company's long-term strategy of providing an "electronic financial service center" in its stores. And attracting more customers with its banking capabilities could increase stores' overall sales if people make purchases after making a deposit.
Mr. Updyke said 7-Eleven began testing the Wells image system at a handful of stores on Oct. 28, the day the Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act took effect.
Vcom kiosks are often used for cashing customers' checks. Previously, the paper checks would sit in the machines for several days until a courier picked them up and took them to a bank for deposit. Now the machines will transmit image files several times a day directly to Wells Fargo for deposit in 7-Eleven accounts.
7-Eleven has Vcom kiosks in 1,051 stores. It plans to use all of them for capturing images for clearing during the second quarter and eventually to put Vcom machines in all of its stores.
"What this is setting us up for is having an electronic branch in all 5,400 stores," Mr. Updyke said.
A critical part of that plan is enabling customers to do more of their basic banking, especially making deposits, at Vcom machines. "We're talking to folks now" - including credit union associations and other organizations that could bring in multiple bank members - "about national deals" Mr. Updyke said. The company has no such deals yet.
Susan Feinberg, a senior analyst in the wholesale banking group of TowerGroup of Needham, Mass., a market research unit of MasterCard International, said the later deadlines and the hosted software set Wells' offering apart.
"It makes sense that the remote-deposit capability would move to a browser-based solution," she said. When banks require clients to install software on their own machines to access financial services, "in some ways they've taken a step backward, because they have gotten back into the business of distributing software to customers and having to maintain it," she said.
She predicted that other banks also will begin hosting image-capture systems for their clients.
