New York, NY, USA
June 4, 2007State
of Remote Deposit Capture: Entering the Mainstream
Report Published by Celent
Over a third of US financial institutions
already offer remote deposit capture services, and nearly one-half will do
so by year end, but adoption by clients has a long way to go.
Few topics in banking have enjoyed such
hype as remote deposit capture (RDC), and rightly so. Unintentionally,
perhaps, Check 21 acted as a catalyst not only for image-based check
processing but also for fundamental changes to the way deposits would be
made, and arguably altering the competitive landscape in ways no other
innovation has done.
Among financial institutions,
RDC adoption has been astonishing—even faster than the Internet banking
gold rush. In just two years, nearly a third of all US banks have adopted
RDC solutions. Over 2,900 financial institutions have implemented (or are
implementing) RDC through March 2007, corresponding to some 112,000
scanners. Based on aggregate vendor activity, Celent expects over 4,000
institutions will have solutions deploying nearly 250,000 devices by year
end 2007. But it's not just about checks. The four largest cash logistics
providers (representing 70% of the US market) have installed check imaging
in their cash vault networks to strengthen banks’ abilities to capture
mixed deposits beyond their historic footprint.
But for all the activity involving bank
adoption, client-level adoption has been unimpressive. Less than 2% of
businesses have signed up for RDC. This has not been a result of lack of
demand, but rather banks’ slowness to action and fixation on theoretical
risks involved with RDC. Companies have adopted solutions offered by
vendors rather than by banks. This direct adoption will deconstruct banks’
ownership of the RDC value chain and leave them competing for low-margin
image cash letter deposits, much like they do for ACH origination
services. Client-level adoption is gaining momentum and will continue to
do so over the next several years as competition grows. In the next two
years, clients will near the 1 million mark; by 2012, clients will swell
to over 5 million.
"Many banks are still just getting
started with remote deposit capture, and haven’t seen the growing
competition for clients that is quickly emerging," says Bob
Meara, author of the report and senior analyst in the
Banking group at Celent. "The next 12 months will be telling, as the
majority of institutions with defensive postures feel the heat from
relatively few aggressive remote deposit deployers willing to make an
investment in core deposit growth."
The 46-page report contains 20 figures and
10 tables. A table of
contents is available online.
|
