Mobile banking is billed as a time-saver, but what if an old-fashioned trip to the bank is actually quicker?
In a tongue-in-cheek video posted Monday, Reuters financial blogger Felix Salmon records how long it takes to use Citigroup's (C) remote deposit capture application on his iPhone and compares it with going to an ATM to deposit a check.
Both come in at just under five minutes, with walking to a nearby ATM coming in ahead by just a few seconds.
"The video … is a bit of fun, and the result could be easily tweaked just by changing the distance I walked to the ATM, but the fact is that even supposedly easy things, like depositing a check by taking a photo of it, are in reality quite hard and full of frustrations,"
In addition to struggling to take a legible picture of the check against a dark background, he had to type in his ATM card and PIN numbers and sign the check.
"Why are the parts of checking accounts which are meant to make our lives easier always encrusted with security protocols which end up making our lives harder?" Salmon asks on the video.
