The account formerly known as “ING Direct Electric Orange Checking” is now “Capital One 360 Checking.”
Well, sometime in April, ING Direct went and added the ability for us Orange-heads to deposit paper checks by scanning and uploading check images via smartphone or PC.
Hmph. And here I was, wondering whether I even wanted to keep our ING Direct accounts open. Kinda tells you how much attention I’ve been giving them lately, doesn’t it?
Scan a Paper Check; Deposit a Paper Check
I’ve been waiting a long while for this feature, honestly. ING Direct will be the first bank or credit union with which I’m associated to offer this service. (No surprise there, I guess.)
Locally, I’ve seen billboards from other banks offering this sort of thing. Being a guy who tries to avoid bank tellers and ATMs as much as I can, I was pretty intrigued at the idea of depositing paper checks simply by snapping a pic of the check (front and back) and sending it to the bank. Well, that day is here. And I, for one, am pretty darn excited about it.
Less trips to the ATM for me! Yay! (And less need for me to have to transfer money from any of our other banks into our Electric Orange checking, too.)
First Check Deposit Is a Go!
I don’t know what you guys were doing this past Sunday night, but *I* was giving ING’s new feature a try. (You can tell I’m a full-fledged money-and-tech dork, because things like this actually make me giddy.)
With a new $100 paper check — fresh from one of our rewards credit cards — in my hands, I quickly read through ING’s online tips for successfully depositing paper checks, and then fired up our home PC and scanner. I put the check face-down on the tray, placed a piece of dark construction paper behind it (ING says this creates contrast and allows their system to more easily identify the check information) and made a 300dpi JPEG scan. I then did the same with the signed back of the check.
A quick upload of both images to ING, and that was it.
Within minutes, my email inbox held a message from ING Direct, telling me that I’d successfully submitted the check. The next morning (Monday), another email informed me that the check had been successfully deposited into my account, and that I was now free to void the check.
Wow. That was easy.
Color me orange-ly happy. Once again, ING Direct has made me remember why I like them so much — and why I’m praying that leadership at Capital One doesn’t screw up the great, great thing that ING has going.
