Bank of America to Improve ATM Deposits

Late last week I received a notice from Bank of America letting me know that they are improving ATM deposits. In short, they’re implementing a system that allows for the scanning of cash and checks as they are inserted into the machine. While this system provides some advantages to the user (like confirmation of the amount of your cash deposit, or a printout of any checks that you deposit) the real benefit here will come in the form of increased efficiency for Bank of America. Not only will this reduce paper shuffling and (hopefully) bank errors, but it should also allow them to process checks electronically and (at some point) more or less instantly. I heard that they’ve been testing this out in certain markets, but it now sounds like it’s ready to prime time. Have any of you run across one of these new-fangled ATMs?

Written by nickel - Filed under: Banking

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Comments (scroll down to add your own):

I love these new ATMs. I don’t bank with BoA but USAA Federal Savings Bank has had these machines for a while. The best part is that they actually put the scanned image (with account numbers obscured) of the check on the printout.

Comment by Katie — Aug 8th 2006 @ 11:24 am
not yet, but i remember seeing something about this on one of the bank commercials. i mentioned it to my mother & she was a bit worried that they would malfunction and steal your cash. she is a bit weary of most new technologies, but i’m looking forward to it. i don’t usually deposit much via ATM, but in the event that i need to, this should be cool.

Comment by Common Cents — Aug 9th 2006 @ 8:03 pm
My bank (PNC) has been doing this for at least 3 or 4 years. Not sure what the big deal is?

Comment by powen — Aug 13th 2006 @ 11:50 am
The big deal is that Bank of America hasn’t been doing this, and now they are. It sounds like a pretty nice system, in that you get immediate proof of your deposit. The main problem for me is that I can never manage to hang onto my receipts.

Comment by nickel — Aug 13th 2006 @ 2:57 pm
These new ATMs are in most BofA banks all over Atlanta.. I just deposited a check into one for the first time yesterday. What’s funny is in Japan where I lived for 5 years, they’ve always had ATMs that incorporated a cash sorter for bills and sometimes coins for deposit. In fact some branches of banks there may have only 3-4 tellers, and about 50 ATMs lined up on the walls!
Here, I often have to deposit checks because I own my own business– I usually like to see a human take my check and scan it but often I have to use the ATM to deposit because the bank is closed when I get to it… So I roll with a stack of deposit envelopes and pens. Now I don’t have to worry about that… and I get a printed copy of the check as proof that I deposited it! Now if only NetBank would do this….

Comment by J7 — Sep 21st 2006 @ 7:26 pm
Just tested this new ATM deposit feature.
Awesome! No envelopes, just insert the check and it instantly recognizes the amount via OCR! What’s even better, is that you get a scanned copy of that check on your receipt. That’s just one more reason why I bank with BOA for 17 years - for business (not sure how it is on personal accounts)

Comment by Nicholas — Apr 7th 2007 @ 8:25 pm
17 years? That’s amazing, because Bank of America was actually formed following NationsBank’s acquisition of BankAmerica in 1998.

Comment by nickel — Apr 7th 2007 @ 8:32 pm
Bank of America did exist prior to 1998. The former NationsBank bought the former Bank of America and became the ‘new’ Bank of America. It’s similar to the deal in which First Union bought Wachovia and took the Wachovia name.

Comment by Michael — Jun 9th 2007 @ 3:07 pm
No, Michael, Bank of America didn’t exist. Nations Bank bought BankAmerica (one word), and then changed names to Bank OF America (three words). So it’s similar to the First Union/Wachovia deal except that a newly-named entity emerged.

Comment by nickel — Jun 9th 2007 @ 4:39 pm
Nickel, you may want to research your data a little more carefully. BankAmerica was the holding company for the Bank of America brand that maintained a large footprint in California and other areas prior to the 1998 merger with NationsBank. In fact in California the brand name Bank of America had been used early as 1929. The former Bank of America brand had different trademarks and styling; clearly different from the brand that is known today.

Comment by Eric — Jun 14th 2007 @ 11:56 am
Eric, you’re absolutely right. Bank of America emerged in 1929 from a merger between BofA, Los Angeles and Bank of Italy. I stand corrected.

Comment by nickel — Jun 14th 2007 @ 12:00 pm
I guess like anything, these machines are only great when they’re maintained properly. I’m not sure about the rest of the country, but I’ve nothing but crappy luck with the ones around the Portland, OR area. I’ve never attempted to deposit hand written checks on cash in to these machines so far, only machine printed Oregon State University expense reimbursement checks. The machines are so bad that 80% of the time, they reject the check outright without even bothering to scan. When they DO take a check, they rescan and rescan and rescan before spitting the check back out and tell you “sorry, we can’t process your check”. On the rare occasion that a check actually DOES scan, the scanners are so bad that the OCR software can’t recognize the amounts and you have to enter the amount from a really crappy little image they put up on screen of the area where the dollar amount is printed. The signs all over the machines say “depositing a check has never been so easy” - yeah, actually it was … when I could stick ten checks in an envelope, put them in the machine and be done and gone in 3 minutes! Not all technology is about improvement…

Comment by Ed — Jul 24th 2007 @ 11:04 pm
The machines are only as good as the contractors that are hired to enter the data in order to get OUR hard earned money into OUR accounts.
Let me tell you about my TRUE nightmare. My wife and I made 2 separate deposits at the same branch. We did this at 2 different times of the day. I had 1 check and she had 3. well, the check i deposited (a couple hundred dollars written from a business account)showed up in our account the next day as we are used to seeing. the 3 checks she deposited were not listed at all. well, 3 days go by and still nothing showing on our account even indicating that we had made the deposit (close to 7 thousand dollars all written from business accounts)The bank gives us the excuse that because 2 of the 3 checks were from out of town, the money would be held for an amount of time before showing up. also because 1 of the checks were written to my business instead of my name, it would probably just come back and have to be rewritten. we told them that we have been depositing checks written to my bussiness into this account for years, why is this one different? the bank has deposited checks from this business written to my business many times over. the next excuse they had to offer is”we don’t have record of you making a deposit on the given day mam” ok, now the poop is gonna hit the fan. so now we have to open an investigation as to where our money is. All 3 checks have been processed by the banks that they were written from, meaning, 7 thousand $ is somewhere other than my account. well after 10 days and 3 trips to the bank, i finally got my money in my account.
all i know is, it’s not legal for me to take anything from anyone for 10 days without recourse. the whole deal just seems illegal to me.
thank goodness i had overdraft protection.

Comment by disgruntled in GA — Sep 5th 2007 @ 12:24 pm
Just opened in Hoboken…..total trainwreck….doesn’t read all checks!!! Plus of the three ATM’s at least one seems to be broken…. For business desposits it is the worst–one check at a time? Bring back the damn envelope already!

Comment by Sam Flax — Oct 5th 2007 @ 8:22 am
I have to say, I agree with Ed and “Disgruntled” on this issue. In fact, before I found this post I just published one of my own slamming this new feature from a usability perspective:

http://freshtilledsoil.typepad.....n-ths.html

Hopefully, BOA (and any other bank launching new features) is actually talking to their customers and testing things before they go out into the wild.

Comment by Alex — Nov 2nd 2007 @ 9:59 am
Last night, I discovered the “convenient” new BofA ATM. I had about forty checks and fifty or sixty currency items to deposit. It was 10 PM on a cold, windy winter night. I had to deposit them to make sure that checks wouldn’t bounce the next day, and so I could pay bills the next day.

It would have taken over an hour to deposit all the currency, one bill at a time, and another half an hour, or more, to deposit all the checks. Imagine my joy, standing there at 10 PM with 3,000 in my hand, depositing one item at a time. The bank did nothing to prepare me for this change.

I wonder — will I have to make all my deposits during banking hours now? This is NOT convenient. During banking hours, I’m earning the money. (The bank apparently doesn’t consider me an important enough customer to allow me to use the night depository.) Will I get charged for a teller transaction when I deposit money? Will I have to itemize each check on a deposit slip now? (This was not necessary when I made deposits in the old ATMs.)

I wonder if the new ATMs scan cash slowly ON PURPOSE, because the bank doesn’t want to be bothered with small deposits.

I wonder if the bank wants to make the customer responsible for all data entry, to save processing costs. If the customer makes a mistake while entering the amount of a deposit, will the bank charge the customer a hefty fee? It wouldn’t surprise me.

The money the bank saves by processing deposits this way will be passed on to me, right?

This morning I found another BofA branch that has the old style ATMs. Maybe I can make my after hours deposits there… So I asked. Will they soon be making the change? There were about 40 bank employees in the building. No one knew, and no one cared. What’s the best way for me to make deposits from now on? No one knew, and no one cared.

Comment by Tim Miller — Nov 19th 2007 @ 1:53 pm
“No one cares”. Right. I too can’t stand the new ATMs: It takes forever to deposit each check as the computer tries to read it; it fails 90% of the time, requiring customers to enter the amount of deposit of each check individually; some checks aren’t read at all, meaning hopping from one ATM to another…

This is certainly for the convenience of the bank and not for customers. Nothing short of a mass exodus of customers will convince them that this is unacceptable.

Wells Fargo has a similar system, but allows the deposit of a stack of up to 30 checks at one time. And their ATMs read the checks correctly 95% of the time.

Say goodbye, BofA.

Comment by John — Dec 30th 2007 @ 3:09 pm
I have been a loyal Bank of America Advantage customer for many years, but I’m not happy with the direction the bank is heading. Everything now is about eliminating service and increasing profit. These new ATM’s are a disaster. The ones in my city will reject any currency denomination greater than a $20 bill, so if someone gives me a $50 or $100 bill I have to go get it broken into $20’s before I can make the deposit. Really nice “time saving” feature, you lunkheads! And the one-check-at-a-time thing is great too. I have both personal and business accounts, and often deposit a whole stack of checks. Don’t you know I love having to stand there and feed the machine one check at a time?

Just wait until YOU have a deposit that you are trying to make right before the cutoff time, and the machine chokes and can’t read the currency or check. If you haven’t had it happen to you yet, be assured, it WILL.

Bank of America, I love your online banking and the fact that your branches are everywhere. But your new ATM’s are NOT a convenience for customers, no matter how hard your spin doctors try to sell them as such. They’re a way for the bank to cut processing costs at the expense of customer usability.

Comment by Mark — Jan 7th 2008 @ 1:57 pm
I don’t get it. I deposited a $50 bill no problem in Virginia Beach the other day and have made check deposits in both NCR and another brand without incident. In all, I have probably deposited 50 checks with no problems. However, I will concede that it is slow and sometimes I have to feed cash in a couple of times. For the peace of mind knowing my deposit is verified, I can take an extra minute or two.

Comment by CK — Jan 7th 2008 @ 11:50 pm
I really like the new ATM feature, especially for cash. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO INSERT CASH 1 BILL AT A TIME, YOU SIMPLY PUT ALL YOUR CASH IN AND IT COUNTS IT. Then instead of having a pending deposit of cash, it is instantly accessable from your account. No waiting for the cash to clear, it is like you went into the bank. Very nice. I haven’t used it for checks because mine are direct deposit.

Comment by Laura — Jan 10th 2008 @ 8:10 pm
The local BofA started using the new ATMs here about two months ago. On three occassions I’ve could not get the machines to read my checks. I’m not happy at all. You pay more for service and the service gets worse.

Comment by Mike Sirkin — Feb 1st 2008 @ 11:50 am
I must say these new ATM’s are absolutely horrible! As a small business owner, I spent nearly 40 minutes at one ATM trying to deposit about $2K cash (various bills). I had to straighten each one out, some bills would be accepted, others were rejected. Much like the frustation of trying to insert a dollar into a soda machine, only this was over 40 bills in total. Some machines will take a stack of cash, others it is one bill at a time.

These new ATMs don’t accept postal money orders!! - Warning: Don’t even try it!

Tonight, I deposited a single check for over $2K. The check was not read properly and the machine had trouble spitting it out. After about 2 minutes of nasty sounding noises, I received the following transaction receipt:

“We apologize for the inconvenience. We are unable to process your request and cannot return item(s). Please contact our Electronic Claims team at 1-866-454-8961 to discuss this transaction.”

I spent 40 minutes on hold, finally got someone on the line who filed the claim for me and now I have to just sit and wait… In total, about 1 hour spent to make 1 stinking deposit.

This was the last straw. BofA, if you even bother to read this, I am done with you guys. You can speak with your electonic claims employee, L. Green, to find out who I am but I am finished with you and if the amount of this check is not deposited, you WILL HEAR FROM OUR ATTORNEY AND BE BILLED FOR MY TIME AND ATTORNEY FEES.

Banking customers’ beware… These new ATM’s are not safe… Use at your own risk.

Comment by Future Wells Fargo Customer — Mar 22nd 2008 @ 1:43 am
I have to admit that I did have my first problem with the new ATM’s. The deposit feature was completly shut down for over a week. I asked in the branch and the woman said the repair guy had been out several times unable to fix it. After probably 3 dozen cash deposits this was my first problem. I would like to ask “Future Wells Customer” if this was the old style ATM would you still have deposited over $2000 in cash? Also, you do realize that Wells uses these machines and in a couple of years all banks will probably have them. BOA has probably had over 100 million deposit transactions with these new machines since they have been installed. I don’t think that this is an epidemic.

Comment by ck — Mar 22nd 2008 @ 8:38 am
So seriously, folks — what can we do, as consumers, besides one-by-one cancel our accounts? I’d rather *not* cancel my BofA account, I’d rather they get a clue about how awful these machines of theirs are. I’ve written a couple of customer service letters & gotten form-letter replies… anything else?

Comment by John — Mar 22nd 2008 @ 7:37 pm
In response to ck:

>I would like to ask “Future Wells Customer” if this was the old style ATM would you still have deposited over $2000 in cash?

Have done so with the old ATM’s since we started banking with BofA back in 1999. Never had a single problem in hundreds (possibly thousands) of deposits.

The Wells Fargo near us offers far superior banking options with no fees. I am not a WF fan, I have been a BofA customer since 1987 and a SB customer since 1999. We have payroll, merchant accounts, wire transfers all tied to our main BofA account — it is NOT a simple task to switch banks and I truly wish we did not have to. However, the new ATMs are simply not acceptable and I dread having to make deposits through them. I have made half a dozen phone call complaints with BofA supervisors, believe me, they are WELL AWARE of the multitude of problems but the fact is, — these ATM’s save BofA hundreds of thousands in labor by passing the burden on to the customers using them. — Just wait until you try to depost a check that is not read and then the machine has a problem returning it… It will happen.

The least BofA could do is to pass money they are saving back to “us” by means of higher interest rates (which are some of the lowest in the banking industry). Nope — it is called corporate greed and I won’t be part of it.

Comment by Future Wells Fargo Customer — Mar 23rd 2008 @ 12:25 am
There seems to be something more than your ATM complaint with BOA. If Wells is adding the same machines what will you gain? Clearly, you are not an average consumer when you deposit thousands of dollars in cash and stacks of checks. Maybe for you the teller window is a better option. I still believe that for the AVERAGE person, these new ATM’s are great. I have had one problem where the machine was not able to take a deposit. Went into the branch and the tellar completed the transaction. In the past 20 years using the convention ATM’s, my failure rate was probably 10% as I often found that there were no deposit envelopes. Do you honestly think that by calling BOA to complain they are going to start removing these $30k machines? This is progress and it will only get better as the tech improves.

Comment by ck — Mar 24th 2008 @ 12:12 pm
Wells Fargo ATMs going envelope-free for deposits

http://www.atmmarketplace.com/.....3&na=1

“Wells says it plans to install eight of the imaging ATMs in Santa Maria. The bank already has 1,300 envelope-free ATMs in northern and central California.”

Comment by ck — Mar 28th 2008 @ 8:37 pm
The new ATM’s will NOT accept US Postal Service Money orders!. Is there something unsafe about these financial instruments that BOA knows and we don’t?

Comment by Eric Fremed — Mar 30th 2008 @ 9:52 am
i bank with b of a. i had one problem with the new machine. it crashed while i was making a deposit. i called customer service while i was sitting at the machine. my wife had her card, so we had a phone number to call. the machine ate my card. i called in the next day to make a claim. they gave a tempory credit, sent me a form to complete. 2 months later the credit was made official. keep your receipts if you get them. be safe.

Comment by KIM — Mar 30th 2008 @ 11:30 am
We too have received a “temporary” credit for a deposited check that was eaten by an ATM. I explained to this not-so-knowledgeable staff (including supervisor Doug F) that from a business perspective, how does a temporary credit help us at all? If BOA does not find the check, the temp credit will be deducted from the account, and this can take up to 2 months.

Well… we have product we need to ship to this customer who sent us this check — so, do we ship the product or not? If we ship, and the deposited check was damaged by the machine, the temp credit we received will be taken away, as late as 2 months later. We certainly can’t wait to ship this customer HIS products 2 months from now and if we ship and the “temp” credit is removed, we are at a complete loss as the customer will already have his goods and we have no recourse.

Asking the customer to issue another $2k + check is unprofessional.

So, all mighty BofA, how would you handle this nasty situation?

Your customer service is beyond reproach —

My advice to anyone reading this, find a different banking institution.

Comment by Future Wells Fargo Customer — Mar 30th 2008 @ 10:41 pm
The new ATM’s will NOT accept US Postal Service Money orders!. Is there something unsafe about these financial instruments that BOA knows and we don’t?

Comment by Eric Fremed

These don’t work with my USAA Deposit@Home either so there must be something unique to them that atm’s and scanners don’t like.

Comment by ck — Apr 1st 2008 @ 1:59 pm
Folks,
I agree with those who say the new ATM’s are horrible. The new envelope-free ATM’s is a NIGHTMARE!!
What you can do is call BofA and file a formal telephone complaint.
(I did this yesterday)
The number is (800) 831-4419.
And yes,
if they do not return the old-fashioned Envelope-accepting ATM’s back, I will switch to another bank, as well.
Alek

Comment by Alek F — Apr 18th 2008 @ 2:34 pm
I am thoroughly disappointed with the new BofA ATM machines.

On the surface the idea of an instant scan when depositing a check seems like the perfect way to reduce paperwork.

I have a small business and receive dozens of checks for payment of my services.

In the past I prepared a deposit in an envelope and popped it the after hours ATM machine and all was good.

I can NOT imagine standing at the ATM with 30 or more checks every night - - - can you imagine the security risk? Neither can I take time off during the day to go in the branch to make a deposit, although I’ve had to do that recently.

However, I found the perfect answer to my problem and encourage any others who have the same problem to try it. CHANGE BANKS!!

Be sure to grill your new banker as to their future ATM plans before you make the switch, or you might be back where you started.

So far so good. I won’t mention my new bank, by it’s going to provide even better services than before.

So there. BofA.

Comment by jose ruiz — Apr 30th 2008 @ 3:32 pm
The first time I used one of these machines I thought it was great it worked perfect and the money was in my account instantly, the next 2 times never again. I work in a restaurant and generally have lots of cash on hand after work. I used to just make a deposit with an envelope every night. The past two deposits actually ate the money I put in. The machine couldn’t handle the cash (less than the 40 bills stated) and just canceled my transaction. I now have two temporary credits on my account while the bank “researches” the problem. What am I too do, all in all if they don’t find anything am I out the 4200?? The machine gave me no receipt just canceled it. I no longer feel safe making a deposit.

Comment by Rob — May 7th 2008 @ 9:22 am