This 3:44 video at ZDnet (with brief add at beginning) is a fascinating demo of depositing checks to your (USAA) bank account by using your iPhone. You run their app on your phone (at the end they mention Android and Blackberry versions are coming). You log in. You go through the deposit process which includes you taking photographs of the front and back of the check you’re depositing. The deposit is posted to your account and you’re left with a piece of scrap paper (the check).
So, there you are at lunch or dinner with the gang and someone pays for the group with their credit card. You each pay for your share of the meal by writing a check on the spot to that person, who then sits there at the table and deposits them all, handing your used check back to you when they’re finished.
I know that Bank of America has ATM’s that let you deposit checks by just scanning them there on the spot. I know most grocery stores now scan your check right there at the checkout and hand you back your check.
I’m still curious what happens if you try to deposit the same check more than once. Or if multiple people each deposit the same check to their account. I may be missing important details, but this seems ripe for abuse. How do you know that the check you’re being handed hasn’t already been deposited elsewhere? I go to Safeway and buy exactly $100 worth of goods and write a check and they scan it in and hand it back to me. Then I go to another Safeway and buy exactly $100 worth of goods and just hand them the same check.
This all must be a consequence of the banking Check 21 law that make electronic images of a check to be functionally – and legally – equivalent to a check.