Consumers 'Get' Remote Capture

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What sets remote deposit capture apart from other new bank technologies is that consumers seem to intuitively grasp how valuable it is, even before they've adopted it. "You typically don't see that. It generally takes a longer period of time for consumer perceptions about a technology to develop," says Genie Driskill, COO at Synergistics Research Corp.

Synergistics recently polled 1,000 Internet-using consumers about their attitudes toward remote deposits. Acceptance among all age cohorts was strong, but the youngest consumers were the most eager. Some 61 percent of those 18-34 said they found mobile RDC valuable, and 67 percent said PC RDC is valuable. That's probably not too surprising, given what Synergistics found in terms of deposit behavior. About 80 percent of those surveyed make deposits every month. The average number of deposits per person is 2.9, and each deposit has an average of 2.5 non-cash items. The younger crowd deposits an average of four items each trip to the bank or ATM.

And while demand remains strong, banks took a break from implementing RDC in the wake of the FFIEC's 2009 guidance on risk as they worked to get a handle on the new rules. That hesitation has abated in 2010 though. A recent Celent report found that just under 1,000 additional financial institutions added RDC in the past year. That means about 75 percent of the banks in the U.S. market are offering the product, according to Celent, and industry-wide vendors reported their client base grew at an average of 49 percent this year.

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