There is little about the mobile space that should shock or surprise anyone anymore. Just think for a minute about all that you can do with that five-ounce device that you tote around wherever you go and it’s hard to think of surviving without it.
One of the most fascinating expansions of that capability has recent come onto the market in the form of a banking service that allows users to take a picture of their check and automatically have that check deposited into their banking account.
On one hand this seems like a no-brainer, perfect use case for a mobile device. It saves the trip to a bank and hastens the deposit of money into a place that you can then quickly turn around and spend. On the other, it seems like the most amazing technology in the world. Just taking a picture of a check and voila, it’s deposited into a banking account seems to make landing a man on the moon look like child’s play.
One of the leaders in supporting this technology is Mitek Systems Inc., which has turned its expertise in imaging capturing and analysis into a service that turns a mobile device with a camera into a handheld bank.
Jim DeBello, CEO and CFO of Mitek, explained to RCR Wireless News some of the science behind the company’s platform as well as the reception it has seen in the mobile space.
RCR Wireless News: What are the specific challenges when it comes to providing secure transactions over wireless networks?
Jim DeBello: 1) Assuring that images of checks are never stored on the phone or mobile device, but only on the server. 2) Assuring that two-factor authentication is used, meaning collect a user name, password and unique ID of the mobile device in each transaction. 3) Always upload encrypted images, and never allow an “off-line mode” of operation. 4) Utilize HTTPS (SSL – secure socket layer) for transferring images to the server. 5) Always utilize firewalls and place all servers behind it. We recommend proxy servers in front of our servers.
RCRWN: What sort of security procedures does Mitek include in the offering?
DeBello: Mitek adheres to the design described above in building security into all our systems. Further, in working with our customers among the integrators and ASPs that supply technology solutions to FIs, we assure that they develop their own applications in understanding what our experience has taught us about handling sensitive customer data on the phone. For example, we advise that they only transmit the “nicknames” of end-user accounts, never the actual account numbers. Also, all extraction of account and personal banking data is done only at the server level, behind firewalls. This information is never available on the phone or mobile device or over the public Wi-Fi or Web.
RCRWN: What sort of impact has the proliferation of mobile operating systems had on Mitek’s operations?
DeBello: Mitek has been involved in and is well-versed in all the major mobile phone OSs for quite a while. Our customers have successfully written apps for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry, with Windows 7 rolling out. Our servers are ASP.NET written in C#, so we don’t need to make changes to our servers to support new operating systems on the phone as we are agnostic.
RCRWN: What sort of reception has Mitek seen from wireless carriers to the offering?
DeBello: The carriers love it. It drives more data usage, and makes them part of the payments ecosystem.
RCRWN: What sort of reception has Mitek seen from financial institutions to the offering?
DeBello: We had tremendous success last year in partnering with literally all of the integrators and ASPs that provide bundled technology solutions to FIs and in educating the FIs on Mobile Deposit as the leading choice for their mobile remote deposit capture functionality. We’re looking forward to 2011 being the year that the FIs implement the technology. We’ve seen indications that more than 75% of the top 25 retail banks in the United States are engaged at some level. Mobile Deposit and Mobile Photo Bill Pay both help FIs by fostering customer acquisition, retention and brand loyalty while driving greater deposits and lower costs.
RCRWN: What sort of reception, if any, has Mitek seen from consumers to the offering?
DeBello: We’re sort of insulated from where the rubber meets the road because – for the most part – we don’t deal with bank and CU customers directly, distributing our apps through partnerships with providers of bundled technology to FIs. But anecdotally, we believe demand among consumers and business users is growing as they come to understand the convenience and intricacy of what they can accomplish with their smart phones and they’re exposed to the advertising of some FIs. And we know that USAA and PayPal are seeing a lot of acceptance by their customers.
RCRWN: What differences have these sort of offerings garnered between domestic and international markets?
DeBello: Nations where checks are prevalent – especially the United States, Canada, France and Mexico – are fertile markets for Mobile Deposit, whereas all countries are potential markets for Mobile Photo Bill Pay because paper bills are rendered pretty much universally. And the beauty of Mitek’s expertise in image recognition, data extraction and processing is that it’s not language-specific.
