Here's how it works --- Clerks in stores accept personal checks, business checks and money orders. The clerk runs each item through a small scanning machine, taking a digital picture of the front and back. Those images are grouped and, using special software, deposited into the store's bank over the Internet.

     Remote Deposit lets a storeowner make a deposit any hour of the day or night and from any location that has access to the Internet. Deposits are faster; the store gets its money faster. It eliminates the need for a daily trip to a bank to deposit checks. Fewer people handle checks. A lot of time is saved for the store's employees.

     In the United States, the number of checks used in transactions is going down, but over 40 billion are still used every year.

     When Remote Deposit is not used, store clerks accept checks, group them in a deposit and take them into the bank with any cash they have received. The Bank teller deposits the items into the store's bank account; however, she places a one to 10-day "hold" on the check amounts while the checks go through a process of "clearing" or being paid by the check-issuing bank. The storeowner is unable to use any of the money until the "hold" is taken off. The reason that it takes so long is because the actual check has to be sent to the issuing bank, has to be processed by that bank and, if the check cannot be paid, it has to be returned to the store's bank. If the store's bank were in Utah and the issuing bank were in New York, that is quite a distance that the check has to travel to complete the process.

     With Remote Deposit, the image of the check is sent electronically to the issuing bank, which can save several days of travel time.

     Over the past two decades, technology has greatly improved methods of payment. Credit cards made it possible to "swipe" cards through a credit card terminal and have the money electronically deposited into the store's bank account. Debit cards made it possible to move money directly from the customer's account to the store's account.

     Now, if someone is using a check, processing it is nearly as fast as swiping the plastic.

Did You Know?

Zions Bancorporation was instrumental in helping create the Remote Deposit system now being sold to businesses all over the United States.