Please Pass the Remote

Mark Sievewright, corporate senior vice president of strategic marketing for Fiserv, Brookfield, Wis.
August 20, 2009 | COMMENTS

If your household is anything like mine, there are too many remote control devices. Each one controls different parts of our multimedia entertainment systems.

But it strikes me that the deposit business looks much the same way. This “remote” analogy is important because, increasingly, businesses and some consumers are turning to remote deposit options.

Looking at the overall retail financial services business, clearly customer behavior and transformational technologies have changed the way financial executives think about deposits. Financial institutions once depended solely on pedestrian and drive-up traffic to generate deposit business. Today, the Internet and remote deposit capture reroute traffic patterns and cater to increasing demands for self-service, causing a shift in deposit activity from Main Street to cyberspace.

By deploying image-based deposit capture solutions across teller stations, branches, regional centers, and ATM networks, and providing these solutions to corporate, merchant, and individual customers, financial institutions will:

• Reduce staffing, paper handling, and transportation costs;
• Improve service quality with increased convenience; and
• Become more environmentally responsible.

Since the “Check 21” regulation went into effect in 2004, thousands of financial firms (including all of the top 100 banks and 50% of community banks) have adopted check imaging and remote deposit capabilities to some degree. This represents a change in the delivery channel service paradigm from predominantly face-to-face in-branch traffic to multichannel, image-based deposits. Up to 7% of remote deposit capture solution installations this year will be replacement technology, according to the Aite Group, Boston.

But, an enterprise approach—equivalent to having a single remote control device in your home—is a key factor in managing this radical shift in deposit activity. Financial firms are dealing with multiple deposit systems while contending with changing check volumes and channel demand.

Disparate systems make it difficult to spot duplicate deposits from different channels, understand how volumes are changing, and assess opportunity, performance, and profitability.

Having a single platform provides rich data about all deposit activity across an organization, as well as by site, user, or deposit status. With this holistic view of deposit operations, you can:

1. Easily detect duplicate transactions, and analyze channel and individual performance;
2. Measure presentment-type and member profitability;
3. Assess deposit trends to help you better manage risk;
4. Reduce check clearing and processing costs with streamlined systems and interface maintenance;
5. Improve member satisfaction by offering members remote deposit transaction options;
6. Give members accelerated funds availability to enhance business or personal cash flow;
7. Better manage financials with robust reporting and monitoring capabilities;
8. Offer “anytime, anywhere” deposit convenience to businesses and individual depositors with Web-based platform.

So, it's time to think differently about the important business of deposit-garnering. More consumers and small businesses are looking for more effective and efficient ways to make deposits whether they're at one of your branches, at work, or at home.

Credit unions need to adopt ways not only to keep up with changes in how members—especially small-business owners—conduct their financial business, but also to facilitate the inevitable changes that lie ahead.

Reprinted with permission from the August 2009 issue of Credit Union Magazine.