February, 26, 2010

In the near future, you might not even have to visit a bank or an ATM to deposit a check. You'll simply snap a couple of photos of it with your cell phone.Applications for that purpose are already available from USAA, a company that provides insurance and banking mainly for military veterans, for Apple Inc.'s iPhone and other mobile devices. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Citibank are among the banks planning to release similar applications this year.

Although the technology, known as remote-deposit capture, promises to save consumers time, it adds a new wrinkle to concerns about fraud and the privacy of financial data. But the banks and the technology companies helping them say they have largely overcome these concerns. And with new guidelines from federal regulators, more banks could start to feel comfortable putting the technology in consumer hands.

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