mrken30

I know a lot of US banks allow remote check deposit using a phone or scanner. Does anyone know if any UK banks have this kind of service yet?

sir_eccles

I was under the impression barely anyone used or accepted cheques in the UK anymore.

A quick Google say Barclay's might and maybe Lloyd's.

Dizzyp

Hi

We had to accept a cheque when we closed a savings account and it took a week to clear. I asked the same question at a Royal Bank of Scotland branch and they looked at me as if I was crazy! That'll never happen here the girl said. Oh well... at least in the UK you can pay your bills by direct debit etc and not have your bank send a physical check to your landlord every month as we had to do in California - silly!

rpjs

That does appear to be one area where the US banking system is ahead of the UK, but then cheques are so little used in the UK thst it's probably not worth the investment.

That said, we pay almost all our bills, gas/electric, mortgage/property tax, rent when we rented, by direct transfer. The only exception is our quarterly municipal water bill.

And going back to the OP's question, it's not high-tech but First Direct in the UK accept cheque deposits by post.

scrubbedexpat099

I think most people deal with cheques so infrequently it would be a why bother?

Owen778

It's arguable if this is really ahead of the UK. Is remote check deposit really secure enough?

kins

I think that depends on your lifestyle. My kids are in school and I'm constantly being asked for cheques for things. I rarely use them for anything else.

kins

Someone paid a check into their account recently, and the bank misread the account number on the check and deducted $1000 from my account.

I think it had been paid in via an ATM so not checked by a human being.

I was a bit miffed.

quiltman

I received a refund cheque from HMRC which I had to send back to a friend in UK to pay into my UK bank. The costs of paying it into an account here and then they transferring the funds was horrendous! Oh, the Nationwide said if I got any more cheques I could just post them to the branch for crediting! We use cheques a lot here to pay people as direct debits are almost non existent.

mikelincs

Most UK banks have deposit areas in their own ATMs so you don't have to queue, and can deposit from another town.

Wintersong

Be aware that with remote cheque deposit, it is possible for people to deposit the same cheque twice. My advice is always to avoid writing cheques wherever possible.

This happened to us with a bill payment - the company cashed the cheque remotely but applied the credit to the wrong account, so told us we hadn't paid our bill. We sent them evidence but they wouldn't accept it so we had our bank refund our cheque and we paid the bill again by credit card. Next thing we knew, they had cashed the cheque again.

Funnily enough, the reason they wouldn't accept our evidence that they had cashed the cheque was because there was no picture of the cheque in our online statement. Why? Because THEY had cashed it remotely. When they cashed it the second time, we could see the picture of it online.

mrken30

Looks like there were legal issues in the UK
from 2013 Unless the law changes, Barclays would only be able to allow customers to pay in cheques from other Barclays customers via a smartphone. This is because, under current legislation, the bank upon which a cheque is drawn has the legal right to demand that it is presented with the physical cheque before it decides whether to honour it.

Cash cheques without going near a bank - Telegraph

In January 2015 the UK government is expected to make the digital image of a cheque legal tender, paving the way to end paper cheque processing.

Following the change in legislation in the first six months of 2015, HM Treasury will set out rules and timeframes.
http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2...heques-in-2015

mrken30

The UK processes 750 million cheques a year

MidAtlantic

Which is about half of what it was five years ago.

kodokan

A friend of mine is involved with this - she's been working on the project to make this happen. Apparently certain banks can already digitally clear checks within its own network - a Barclays customer paying in a check from another Barclays account holder - but the delay is in making it work between banks. It's due to be in place sometime in 2017.

She says there are around 2 million checks a day currently being processed through clearing, and that the numbers are actually predicted to increase slightly once the digital processing comes online.