Mobile check deposit would be great for a few reasons.
Depositing Cash. Money orders are cheap < $2.00 A money order is just a check written by the store to yourself. Being able to deposit this would be great. Reloading the card directly through Green Dot costs ~$5.00 and seems to no longer be supported. https://www.attheregister.com/
Some employers only issue checks, and do not offer direct deposit.
Many refunds are only offered by check. My car insurance would only refund me on a paper check.
As there is no P2P payment system in the US that does not rely on third parties, such as Venmo, Zelle, Paypal, etc. Checks are often used for gift giving.
I know Monzo’s stance on Mobile deposit in the UK, however most if not all banks have offer some sort of Mobile Deposit in the US and have done so for almost 10 years. It is just pretty much a given here.
@SammyP there is no person to person transfer facility in the US, If attempt to transfer money using my legacy bank to myself it just mails a check out.
It has been two weeks and I am still unable to get money into my account because Monzo only supports ACH and debit card top up. Because Monzo does not fully support ACH I am having issues linking the account to services like Zelle, Venmo, Paypal, CashApp.
Many employers pay by check. If I open a legacy bank, and try to transfer money into the account it will pop a check in the post to myself. Not much use if Monzo wont take it.
Monzo recently removed the ability to deposit cash using the Green Dot network. Therefore cannot deposit cash.
I did submit the paperwork, yes PAPERWORK to Fidelity to link my Monzo account, but this takes about 27 business days to process. If approved I can then make ACH transfers which take 3-7 Business days to complete each.
I mean you’re using a British bank that has literally JUST come to the US and expecting everything to be super smooth with no issues. Unfortunately that’s not how it works in the real world, you’re likely to hit a few speedbumps along the way.
Still, even with no expectation for it to be done in the next few months, I’m throwing in my vote for this feature.
An illustrative anecdote: I’ve recently had my checked bag damaged on an American Airlines flight. They were happy to compensate, however they said they only did bank transfers to international accounts. If I wanted the money in my US bank account I’d have to receive a check and deposit it.
So if I was a UK Monzo customer it would have been fine and dandy- provide the bank details and wait for the money to show up. Nope, I get to wait for the check to arrive, then if I want the money in my Monzo card I have to deposit it to my usual bank account and send an ACH transfer.
Honestly, half the problem is that instead of one unified new system like Faster Payments in the UK, we in the US somehow ended up with multiple third-party systems (Zelle, Popmoney, CashApp, Venmo) that each have their own failings (Zelle and Popmoney aren’t supported by all banks, and banks that support one won’t support the other, CashApp and Venmo aren’t directly linked to banks so there’s a delay between receiving money and having it in your bank account ready to use, which both remedy by offering a debit card, which doesn’t completely solve the problem if you’ve got a bill to pay).
I agree that US Financial system is archaic but it is what it is. I also received a few checks and was very surprised. A few examples of checks:
My work had to send my first pay via check. When I asked they said it was to verify the address (not very convinced by that answer)
I got into an car accident (I’m all good) and the insurance sent me a check as a settlement
I cancelled a subscription and was offered a refund… via check
I have a TD Bank account and I used their mobile deposit feature to deposit those checks. I live in Chicago and there are no TD Bank branches here so Mobile Deposit was my only option. It was very simple and quick. I had to scan/take a photo of the front and back to the check and the money was deposited within a few business days. Once the money was in my bank account, I could simply dispose of the checks.
Note that TD Bank has some monthly limits as to how much you can deposit. I really hope Monzo doesn’t include such limits OR have large amount limit. When I received a few checks, I had to wait 2 weeks in order to deposit one of them due to the limit.
Yeah I could have switched to another bank but I got a bit lazy to be honest. Plus my wife is still waiting for her SSN so hard to get a joint account at a new bank while TD Bank was fine adding her without a SSN. I also go back to NY/NJ on a regular basis for work so didn’t really need to make a change. The check deposit & ATM fees were the only 2 annoying things about TD Bank. I get the ATM fees reimbursed by upgrading to a different personal account (free with a minimal balance) so it’s not too bad.
Just waiting for more features (joint account, interest rate, checks deposit) from Monzo US and will probably make the switch.
This is a super needed thing to have for a banking platform in the USA. Recent examples from the past 2 months:
My state had a budget surplus… my tax reimbursement was mailed as a check.
We were overcharged for a tree removal… the reimbursement was a check.
I received two checks as holiday gift money.
My health insurance released a payment for a claim… to my address as a mailed check.
People who do billpay through their bank… the bank mails a check to the person its for.
The payout to myself from a consignment shop I’d sold things with was a check
Currently, I have to run the check deposit through my business account (which lets me scan the check with my phone and deposit it), wait for it to clear, then ACH deposit it to Monzo. It’s a pain and every other online banking platform here does mobile check deposit.
Its a staple part of American banking still, regardless of whether it’s outdated and stupid.
