Reflections on the Remote Deposit Capture Summit 2012

I had the pleasure of attending the Remote Deposit Capture Summit 2012 in Orlando last week. As in prevous years, the Remote Deposit Capture Summit 2012 was a helpful networking event for those who derive their livelihood from RDC. And as in previous years, the number of new faces were few. To my eyes, there was a singular source of excitement at the Summit this year, and it was again all about mobile. Discussions with a number of financial institutions prior to and during the event suggests that mobile RDC is a source of both excitement and aggravation. The excitement is a function of the large and growing appetite among consumers and businesses for the capability. Stories abound about how enrolments and subsequent deposits happen within minutes of making apps available on the Apple iStore. Such stories are simply…amazing! The aggravation reflects a growing realization that we may have collectively over promised and under delivered mobile RDC’s efficacy to consumers. Said simply, the advertising makes mobile RDC appear faster and easier than it typically is. The unfortunate result is that an alarming percentage of deposit attempts fail. Worse, many banks don’t have clear visibility to these dissatisfying interactions and feel powerless to address the problem. In several cases, banks explained that prior to a deposit being accepted, they can’t track the activity back to individual users. Don’t misunderstand my comments as being down on mobile RDC. I’m a big fan. What the RDC Summit drove home for me is that significant improvements need to be made in the user experience. Two things appear central to doing so. 1. Improved integration into mobile banking platforms. Particularly in the area of analytics to help financial institutions better understand the customer experience and address poor experiences with targeted customer outreach. How many banks provide real-time help to depositing customers who are having difficulty? Not many. 2. Improved image analytics. Image analytics engines have come a long way over the past few years, but the extreme variability of mobile image capture has proven to challenge even the best of them. The space, once the sole purview of Mitek Systems is now a hotbed of competition from AllMyPapers, Top Image Systems and others. Trends in product development point to real-time user feedback designed to reduce the variability in the raw images. The end result, will hopefully be reduced image rejects, reduced back-office exception processing and improved customer satisfaction. It can’t come soon enough.