26 Jun History of eDeposit in Canada

While researching my previous post on eDeposit for mobile apps in Canada, I came across a lot of information.  I thought it might be useful to collate, consolidate and share.

The number of checks paid continues to decline, falling to 18.3 billion, less than half the number a decade earlier (37.3 billion). Checks are increasingly being deposited as images, with 17 percent being deposited as an image at the bank of first deposit versus 13 percent as reported in the 2010 Study.

[From FRB: Press Release–Federal Reserve Payments Study offers expanded view of U.S. noncash payment trends–December 19, 2013]

History

2007

• The Canadian Bills of Exchange Act and Canadian Payments Act had to be amended to establish the definition of ‘official image’ of an eligible bill.

2008-2012

• The CPA launches the Image Rule project to phase in the acceptance of images as an alternative to paper xxx.
• NCR starts working with a number of the Canadian banks and financial organizations to offer photo chequing.  Based in Waterloo, they developed NCR’s APTRA Passport for Mobile technology used by major banks in the USA.

2013

• March 21, 2013  announces Deposit Anywhere – a facility allowing their customers the ability to photograph their cheques on their smartphones and deposit them via their MemberDirect mobile app.  With fraud prevention as much of a consideration as convenience, it was technically sophisticated, involving Handwriting recognition and Duplicate detection.
• April 17, 2013  Westminster Savings Credit Union B.C. becomes the first Canadian financial organization to offer this facility to its members
• May 24, 2013  Members deposit over $1 million CAD using Deposit Anywhere on their smartphones
• June 18, 2013 ING Direct (soon rebranded as Tangerine)  launches Cheque-In as part of their phone app.
• August 12, 2013 CPA finalized rules to facilitate eDeposit via mobile apps.  This post by Jennifer Brown in Legal Feeds recaps the history to date and the background to the CPA’s Image Rule Project.
• November 27, 2013  CIBC is the first of the big 6 Canadian banks to offer eDeposit to its personal and small business customer base.
• December 12, 2013  CIBC expands their eDeposit service to business users with larger cheque volumes, incorporating a special desktop cheque scanner.

2014

• July 29, 2014  CIBC announces that clients have deposited over 1 million cheques using eDeposit.
• October 16, 2014  TD launches Mobile Deposit  

2015

• May 19, 2015 RBC adds Photo cheque deposit to their mobile app 

These Canadian banks do not have cheque eDeposit capability at present:

Scotia, BMO

AKA

eDeposit is also referred to as: Remote Deposit, Deposit online, Mobile Check Deposit,

The global picture

USA – Banks such as JPMorgan Chase and Citibank have been using remote capture since Check 21 Act took effect on October 28, 2004 allowing the creation of a substitute check.

UK – Remote capture was announced in the UK in 2014, with Barclays Bank being the first bank to launch their pilot program for mobile cheque imaging.

Australia – The Australian Payments Council regards cheques to be a legacy payment system.  As such they have chosen to direct their energies on actively working to provide alternatives to paper cheques.

Key players

CPA (Canadian Payments Association) – administers the clearing and payment of cheques, and had to declare the image of a negotiable item (cheque) as legal.

Central 1 – provides the clearing house and payments processing functionality for a majority of Canada’s credit unions.  Central 1 is a member of the CPA.

NCR Corporation – The software underpinning Deposit Anywhere functionality used by Central 1 is developed by NCR Corporation based in Waterloo, Ontario.

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Over to you:

?  When did you first start using eDeposit for your cheques?

?  Did you know that Credit Unions were first-to-market technology leaders in this field?

?  Were you surprised to learn that the photo deposit technology used in the USA was developed in Canada?

?  Want to know more?  Just enter ‘use app to deposit a cheque’ on YouTube

?  What other information would you have liked to see here?

Related information:

1.  apple watch http://business.financialpost.com/news/fp-street/cibc-launching-apple-watch-app?__lsa=04e5-ec02
2. Credit Unions – https://www.central1.com/digital-payments/payment-processing-solutions/paymentstream-deposit-anywhere
3. Tangerine – http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/ing-app-deposits-cheques-by-smartphone-or-tablet-1.1387430
4. Image Rule Project – http://www.cdnpay.ca/imis15/eng/Publications/News/eng/res/ns/cpa_image_rule_project.aspx
5. CIBC – http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/news/canadian-banks-racing-to-offer-photo-chequing-from-your-iphone/
6. Race to be first – http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/news/canadian-banks-racing-to-offer-photo-chequing-from-your-iphone/
7. Legal Feeds http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/legalfeeds/1640/canadian-banks-get-ok-to-move-ahead-with-image-cheque-deposit.html