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Bank of America Corp. is planning to test a service that would enable customers to deposit checks electronically with mobile phones, a move that could transform a niche application into a mainstream offering, reports American Banker, a CardLine sister publication. BofA is not the first to offer mobile remote-deposit capture to consumers, but when the anticipated test kicks off this year it almost certainly will be the biggest, and that kind of market clout could prompt other banks to follow suit, according to analysts. "BofA entering the fray is by definition a game-changer," says Bob Meara, a senior analyst at Celent, a Boston-based market-research company. Nicole Sturgill, research director for delivery channels at TowerGroup Inc., a Needham, Mass.-based research firm, agrees. "This will be a driver for other top 10 banks to do this," she says. According to several observers familiar with the project, BofA expects to test the service initially as an upgrade to its existing mobile-banking application for Apple Inc.'s iPhone. It likely will expand the test next year to include users of Research in Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry devices and phones that use Google Inc.'s Android operating system. The service would enable consumers to use the phones' built-in cameras to capture images of the front and back sides of checks. The software transmits the images to the bank, which processes the electronic deposits. BofA will be following USAA Federal Savings Bank, which in August became the first U.S financial company to offer a consumer remote-deposit service for mobile phones by upgrading its existing iPhone application (CardLine, 8/10). The $35.4 billion-asset company provides financial services to 7.2 million members of the U.S. military and their families. BofA declined to provide an executive to discuss its mobile-banking strategy, though bank spokesperson Tara Burke says "we continue to look at new technologies to make banking easier for customers." BofA offers mobile services free to its online customers through most mobile and smartphone handsets, including iPhones, BlackBerries and Androids.
