Remote deposit: stimulating the need for a new paradigm.

• Author: Motley, L. Biff
• Position: Customer Satisfaction

Like most banks these days, we are working our way through the details of offering remote-deposit capture services to our clients. These services offer time-saving convenience by allowing people and businesses to avoid trips to the bank to make check deposits. By exploiting the check-imaging regulations contained in the Check 21 legislation, it is now possible to make permissible images of checks at home or in the office and deposit them into a bank account without ever going to the bank. There are a number of technical issues that bankers have to solve before offering these self, ices, such as who will pay for the imaging devices and how will the various risks associated with the new process be mitigated. Undoubtedly there will be a few minor false steps and blind alleys, but eventually these will be smoothed over and our customers will no longer be required to visit our branches to deposit checks.

This eventuality will be another in a series of advancements that will cause marketers to reassess and adjust the strategic role of branches in their marketing mix. You will remember that, regardless of your industry, location, size or anything else, your marketing mix is made up of the "four P's" ... Products, Pricing, Promotion and Placement (or delivery channels). The encroachment of technology forces marketers to review these four variables and make strategic adjustments to their mix. Remote deposit capture services will likely bring about huge competitive adjustments.

Consider, for example, how E-Trade or other similar national providers of Internet-based financial services might exploit the idea that you don't have to visit you local branch anymore. You can make your deposits from home (or business), you can get cash from any ATM (they waive the fees), you can apply for loan on line, and so forth and so forth.

Where does this leave us? The key, I believe, is in the Placement and Promotion elements of the...