Mobile Payment Magazine

U.S. Bank now letting customers snap photos of their bills for automatic mobile payment | The Verge

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By now, using your smartphone for check deposits has almost become old hat. U.S. Bank is looking to take the next step in conjoining gadgets and financial accounts with the launch of Mobile Photo BillPay. The feature, which the bank says is the first of its kind, lets customers snap a photo of a bill, after which all payment fields will automatically be populated with the proper information. The underlying technology has been developed by Mitek, with extracted data including the intended payee, address, account number and total amount due.

Read more, via The Verge.

Mitek Systems Brings “Point and Shoot” Balance Transfer to Smartphones

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Mitek SystemsMitek Systems, Inc., a provider of mobile-imaging applications using smartphone cameras for check deposits, bill payments and ACH enrollments, today announced an innovative application for the financial services industry that enables consumers to switch bank credit card accounts as simply as “Point, Shoot and Transfer.”

Mitek Mobile Balance Transfer, a new, easy, attractive and cost-effective way for a bank to acquire new credit card customers, will be demonstrated for the first time on Sept. 21 to attendees at the FinovateFall 2011 conference in New York.

Mobile Balance Transfer joins the rapidly growing family of mobile-banking applications for banks, credit unions, brokerages and payment-management providers that are all rooted in the company’s patented mobile image-capture and data-extraction capabilities.  Along with Mobile Deposit, Mobile Photo Bill Pay and Mobile ACH Enrollment, the newest Mitek app gives financial institutions a powerful platform of customer-acquisition and -retention tools.

The mobile application enables a bank’s customer to use a smartphone camera to take a picture of a competitor’s credit card payment coupon.  The customer transmits the information to the bank, which then can offer the customer a better interest rate to incent the customer to open a new credit card account and transfer an existing balance.

For banks, Mobile Balance Transfer broadens the reach of traditional balance-transfer-marketing programs, enabling the bank to interact with the customer in real time.  By accepting the bank’s offer, the consumer simply transfers his or her outstanding credit card balance to a new credit card account offering a more attractive rate, saving the customer time and money.

“The better banks understand the power of the digital-scanning devices in consumers’ hands, the more they want to add applications that create more intimate relationships with their customers that are based on convenience and trust,” said Mitek President and CEO James B. DeBello.

“Mobile Balance Transfer is our latest product that does just that,” he said.  “We’re responding to the banks’ requests for greater functionality and simplicity for users. The breadth of capabilities found in our imaging services, and now on the devices themselves, further position Mitek as the ‘Gold Standard’ in mobile banking.”

“We’re seeing financial institutions starting to formulate their mobile-imaging strategies in interesting ways,” DeBello said.  “It’s now clear that every bank or credit union needs one because the huge growth in smartphones and tablets dictate that you either have a mobile-imaging strategy or you’ll be woefully behind your competition.”

All of the Mitek apps for financial institutions comport with U.S. banking regulations for accuracy and security, and all are compatible with leading devices and wireless operating systems, including iPhone, BlackBerry and Android.

Mitek also recently launched its Mobile Imaging Cloud™ Service, which provides mobile application developers and businesses with a fast, cost-effective way to create smartphone and tablet apps that use the camera as an input method for a wide variety of tasks, eliminating the need to keystroke data from documents.  DeBello said the company believes the Mobile Imaging Cloud service will be attractive to a number of vertical industries, especially insurance and healthcare.

Mitek’s extractive-imaging technology works with both paper and non-paper documents, including drivers’ licenses, gift cards, receipts, invoices, tax documents and many others.

How Mobile Balance Transfer from Mitek works

Knowing that most of their retail customers have credit card accounts with competing banks, financial institutions can add Mobile Balance Transfer to their arrays of mobile-banking apps available to customers.  When consumers access their mobile-banking accounts, they see an icon for an app that offers them a better credit card rate.

Upon opening the app during a mobile-banking session, consumers are prompted to snap photos of credit card coupons from their current issuers.  Mobile Balance Transfer accurately and securely converts the photographed information into data files that electronic banking systems can use to extend a more competitive offer to the consumer, including interest rates, terms and conditions.

Consumers can accept the offers with a single touch of their device keypads, and the banks will automatically transfer the balances and establish new accounts.  No paperwork, no junk mail, no fuss.

Consumers gain reduced costs on their credit card accounts and the banks offering Mobile Balance Transfer gain new credit card customers more cost-effectively than previous balance-transfer methods.

Source: PR Newswire

Mitek Systems Shares Approved for NASDAQ Listing

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Mitek Systems LogoMitek Systems, Inc. a provider of mobile-imaging applications using smartphone cameras for check deposits, bill payments and ACH enrollments, today announced that that it has been approved for the listing of its shares on the NASDAQ Capital Market.

The company expects to commence trading on the NASDAQ Capital Market on Thursday, July 14, 2011, under the ticker symbol “MITK.” Prior to the listing change to NASDAQ, the company’s common stock will continue to trade on the OTC Bulletin Board under the current ticker symbol “MITK.OB.”

The company’s patented flagship mobile-banking product, Mobile Deposit, enables users to deposit checks securely and accurately simply by snapping photos of the paper documents with their camera-equipped smartphones, eliminating visits to bank branches or ATMs. Mobile Deposit has been or is in the process of being deployed by six of the top 10 retail banks in the United States, and by dozens of other banks, credit unions, brokerage firms and payment facilitators.

“We are pleased to announce Mitek’s listing on the NASDAQ Capital Market,” said James B. DeBello, President and CEO of Mitek Systems. “We believe the move to NASDAQ greatly increases the visibility of our shares in the market and reflects the company’s strong growth in mobile payments.”

Source: PR NewswireMitek Systems Shares Approved for NASDAQ Capital Market Listing — SAN DIEGO, July 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ —.

Mitek Systems Reports Q2 2011 Earnings

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Mitek Systems, Inc. (OTC: MITK.OB), a leader in mobile-imaging applications using smartphone cameras for check deposits, bill payments and ACH enrollments, today announced financial results for the second quarter of its fiscal 2011, which ended March 31, 2011.

Net sales for the second quarter of fiscal 2011 were $2,868,000, compared with $1,517,000 in the same quarter last year, an increase of $1,351,000 or 89 percent. Gross margin for the second quarter of fiscal 2011 was 91 percent, compared with 88 percent for the same quarter last year.

Net income for the second quarter of fiscal 2011 was $570,000, or $0.02 per diluted share, compared with net income of $7,000 or $0.00 per diluted share, for the same fiscal quarter last year.

The Company ended the second fiscal quarter of 2011 with cash and cash equivalents of $2,304,000, compared with $1,305,000 in the year-ago period. The Company had working capital of approximately $2,997,000 and stockholders’ equity of $3,244,000 at the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2011, compared with working capital of approximately $1,400,000 and stockholders’ equity of $1,001,000 at the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2010.

President and CEO James B. DeBello said the Company is experiencing increasing momentum in sales of its flagship Mobile Deposit® solution, with five of the nation’s top 10 retail banks now signed on to deploy the application. These include new customers Bank of America and Capital One Financial. In April 2011, Mitek announced that an additional 26 banks have signed agreements to deploy Mobile Deposit, bringing the total number of financial institutions to 40 – including many of the top U.S. retail banks and payments companies.

“Mitek is very pleased to add Bank of America and Capital One Financial as Mobile Deposit customers through our channel partner NCR,” DeBello said. “We continue to see an unprecedented level of interest in Mobile Deposit in our core banking channel and across the entire payments industry. After success last year in partnering with the financial industry’s top solutions providers, 2011 is the year deployment of Mobile Deposit is hitting its stride.”

In addition to its second-quarter operating results, Mitek significantly strengthened its balance sheet following the close of the quarter by completing a private placement of its common stock to select institutional investors in a transaction managed by William Blair & Company. Gross proceeds from the transaction were $15,000,000. As a result of the transaction, Mitek plans to file for the listing of its shares on the NASDAQ Capital Market.

“We are proud today to stand with the strongest financial position in the Company’s recent history following our share sale,” said DeBello. “We believe it is testament to the potential of Mitek and our unique position as a pure play mobile-payments company.”

DeBello said Mitek has established itself as a leader in mobile-payments innovation with its patented image-analysis technology and growing portfolio of products for the financial services industry that enable secure, accurate and convenient mobile transactions via smartphone cameras.

The portfolio also includes Mobile Photo Bill Pay, which allows a user to pay a bill without writing a check or licking a stamp simply by snapping a photograph of the paper document, and Mobile ACH Enrollment, an application that enables consumers to enroll their checking accounts as funding sources for mobile payments by taking photos of blank checks with their smartphones.

DeBello will discuss the second-quarter financial results in a conference call for shareholders, financial analysts and other interested parties at 9 a.m. EDT / 6 a.m. PDT today.

Source: PRNewswire

Snap a Photo of Your Blank Check for Instant Mobile Checking Account Enrollment

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Mitek Systems has released a new application for mobile payments companies which offers consumers the most convenient way to enroll their checking accounts.

Called Mitek Mobile ACH Enrollment, the solution allows mobile-payment companies to help consumers enroll their checking accounts as funding sources for mobile payments with a “Point, Shoot, Enrolled!” solution that requires only that consumers snap photos of blank checks with their smart phone cameras. Mitek’s application captures all the information needed for enrolling their accounts.

Today, consumers connect their checking accounts to their mobile-payment solutions by typing in a complex set of numbers shown on their checks via their smart phone keypads. These strings of numbers can cause confusion among mobile consumers to the point that they either abandon their attempted mobile transactions or enter the digits incorrectly. However, by having consumers snap photos of their checks, Mitek’s patented technology eliminates confusion and frustration by capturing and passing on all relevant checking account information that the payment company needs to connect its payment solution to the consumers’ checking accounts.

The product name is derived from the widely used Automated Clearing House (ACH) function in financial transactions. ACH processes large volumes of credit and debit transactions, which in 2010 totaled nearly 19 billion transactions valued at more than $29 trillion.

Mitek Mobile ACH Enrollment joins Mitek’s flagship Mobile Deposit, Mobile Photo Bill Pay and Mobile Receipt applications that all capitalize on the company’s core competency – the patented ability to securely and accurately detect, capture, analyze, enhance and process digital information gathered via the smart phone camera.

“By eliminating keystrokes, our new Mobile ACH Enrollment solution reduces consumers’ anxieties about enrolling their checking accounts with mobile payments providers,” said Mitek President and CEO James B. DeBello. “They no longer have to worry about entering each character in the proper sequence because they can let their smart phone cameras do all that.

“We’re turning our many years of experience in extracting critical data from check images and our patented intellectual property expertise into a platform of innovative applications for the mobile banking environment,” added DeBello. “The Mobile ACH Enrollment product is the first in a series of enrollment solutions enabled by our mobile imaging platform. Our customers who supply technology solutions to the financial services industry continue turning to Mitek for help in addressing industry problems. We’re happy to oblige.”

Source: PR Newswire

Three Financial Institutions Switch to WAUSAU Financial Systems for Remote Deposit Capture

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WAUSAU Financial Systems, a provider of payment and receivables processing solutions, today announced that Westbound Bank, American Chartered and Alerus Financial have made the switch from their existing remote deposit capture (RDC) solutions to WAUSAU’s Deposit 24/7 RDC suite. Deposit 24/7, complete with risk monitoring and remittance payment capture functionality, is the most comprehensive RDC solution available, and includes merchant, consumer and mobile capture points which allow for convenient and secure check deposit from the office, at home or on-the-go.

For financial institutions previously unsatisfied with their check deposit technologies, WAUSAU Financial Systems’ RDC solution distinguishes itself through unique functionality, including automated risk monitoring, a necessity for financial institutions that plan to offer RDC to micro-businesses and consumers.

“After reviewing five potential RDC providers, many claimed comprehensive risk monitoring still wasn’t an option,” said Lisa Clark, IT manager, Westbound Bank. “Then, we were introduced to WAUSAU’s solution. Its full integration to Quickbooks, built-in lockbox capabilities and custom risk monitoring features truly set it apart from the other solutions.”

Understanding that risk strategies often leave financial institutions vulnerable, WAUSAU ensured its solution included components such as velocity and dollar limits and real-time decisioning, making the management of risk and compliance truly second nature for financial institutions and their risk management teams.

“Managing risk is always a bank’s primary concern, given the sensitive nature of our business,” said Kent Scharringhausen, senior vice president of treasury, American Chartered. “We were looking for one provider with a comprehensive RDC package including mobile and consumer options. We interviewed six vendors and WAUSAU was the only one that could provide complete assurance surrounding risk, in addition to a mobile RDC solution ready for deployment next month.”

Given the electronic, self-service options the technology provides, financial institutions like Westbound Bank, American Chartered and Alerus Financial can use WAUSAU’s RDC technology to retain and expand their customer bases, providing new levels of deposit convenience and reducing traditional branch deposit transaction volume and branch operating expenses.

“Introducing new technologies to our branches can sometimes cause uncertainty among our staff,” said Lori Laturnus, deposit platform manager, Alerus Financial. “With WAUSAU’s solution, however, we were given the proper training and resources to implement the new technology quickly, without the headaches new systems can often create.”

For innovative financial institutions looking for speed-to-market with mobile deposit solutions, WAUSAU’s Deposit 24/7 Mobile RDC application offers seamless integration options that allow them to get to market quickly without compromising on quality.

“Our unique mobile ASP solution is particularly fitting for community banks wanting to get to market quickly, given it can integrate with financial institutions’ existing mobile banking platforms or be used as a stand-alone application, if desired,” said Kathy Strasser, executive vice president of solution management for WAUSAU Financial Systems. “Currently, few financial institutions are offering mobile RDC. Those that make the decision to offer mobile will have a window of opportunity to attract new customers and capitalize on growth before the competition elects to follow.”

Industry analysts agree that many more financial institution RDC installations are to come.

“Celent estimates that more than a million consumers are registered users of consumer desktop or mobile RDC,” said Bob Meara, senior analyst in Celent’s banking group. “We’re beginning to approach mass adoption and see the recent RDC deployments as only the tip of the iceberg. A growing number of financial institutions, whether large or small, are sure to launch consumer directed RDC products in the coming year.”

For more information on WAUSAU Financial Systems’ Deposit 24/7 RDC solution, which has earned top ratings from industry analyst firms Celent and Aite Group, visit www.wausaufs.com.

Deposit 24/7 Mobile relies on technology from Mitek Systems, Inc. called Mobile Deposit, a patented application that allows users of many popular smart phones to deposit their checks simply by snapping photos with the cameras on their devices.

Source: PRNewswire

Chase Partners with Mitek Systems for Mobile Check Deposit Solutions

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Chase has entered into a strategic agreement with Mitek Systems, Inc., a developer of advanced-image analytics and mobile-document-capture applications, to develop a suite of innovative image-capture solutions across multiple smartphone operating systems.

“Mitek’s Mobile Deposit product helps us deliver on that promise by making mobile check depositing convenient and quick, across a variety of platforms.”

The agreement enables Chase to build on the success of its award-winning QuickDeposit feature by deploying Mitek’s mobile-banking and advanced image-capture and analytics products across a variety of smartphone operating systems. QuickDeposit allows customers to deposit checks anytime and anywhere with a click of their mobile phone camera.

“Customers demand an efficient and reliable mobile-banking experience from Chase,” said Jack Stephenson, managing director of Mobile, Ecommerce and Payments, JPMorgan Chase. “Mitek’s Mobile Deposit product helps us deliver on that promise by making mobile check depositing convenient and quick, across a variety of platforms.”

Mitek President and CEO James B. DeBello said: “At Mitek, we enhance the consumer’s mobile-payment experience with advanced capabilities for depositing checks and paying bills that are accurate, secure and easy to use. We are proud to partner with Chase for the use of our patented software solutions.”

In addition to its QuickDeposit feature, Chase provides consumers with industry-leading mobile banking services, including:

  • Award-winning Chase mobile banking applications for iPhone and Android users.
  • Text Banking: allows customers to request from any mobile phone and receive within seconds their account balances and transaction history on checking, savings, credit card, mortgage and home equity accounts.
  • Instant Action Alerts: text messages are sent the moment a checking account balance falls below a pre-selected amount; the customer can then instantly transfer funds through a text-message reply.
  • Chase QuickPay feature is now available for iPhone users, allowing them to send money to and receive funds from virtually anyone who has signed up for the service with an e-mail address.
  • Mobile Chase.com website, offering standard services for all mobile banking customers.

Source: Business Wire

Mitek Systems

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For more than 20 years, Mitek Systems (OTC: MITK.OB) has provided financial institutions with advanced imaging and analytics software to authenticate and extract data from imaged checks and other financial documents.

Mitek’s patented technology is currently used by all leading financial organizations in the United States to process more than 10 billion items per year. Today, Mitek is applying its patented technology and extensive expertise in image correction, optical character recognition and intelligent data extraction to mobile devices. Using Mitek Mobile Apps, smart phone users can now deposit checks, pay bills, save receipts and fax documents while on the road or sitting at a desk — eliminating trips to the bank, Post Office and file cabinet.

For more information: Mitek Systems