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Ally Bank Offers Remote Check Deposit

Written by Nickel - 12 Comments

Last summer I mentioned that ING Direct was about to roll out the ability for customers to deposit checks electronically. Unfortunately, that still hasn’t happened. Yes, their website still says that “depositing check is about to get a whole lot easier,” but I’m not holding my breath.

Perhaps they ran into technical difficulties, or perhaps the takeover by Capital One has delayed things indefinitely. Who knows? But what I do know is this… Another major player in the online banking space — Ally Bank — has added the ability to deposit checks remotely.

The new feature is called “Ally eCheck Deposit,” and it involves scanning an uploading your check from the comfort of your home. You can either use their scanning wizard, or you can scan it on your own and upload the image manually. Apparently your deposit will be processed on the next business day, so it’s way faster (and easier) than mailing in a check.

Funds availability is governed by their standard deposit agreement, which states that:

For all other checks drawn on any U.S. financial institution other than Ally Bank, state or local government checks that are payable to you, Cashierâ€™s, Certified, Tellerâ€™s or travelerâ€™s cheques that are payable to you, and Federal Reserve Bank checks, Federal Home Loan Bank checks, and postal money orders, if these items are payable to you, $100 is available on the first business day after the day of your deposit and the remaining funds on the second business day after the day of your deposit.

Though longer delays may be applicable if, for example, you deposit checks totaling more than $5k in a single day or you have a history of overdrafts.

I haven’t tried this myself, but it looks reasonably efficient. It would be nice if you could just snap a pic with a smartphone and tap the screen to upload, but still… This beats the heck out of mailing a check or driving across town to a brick and mortar bank.

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Published on November 11th, 2011
Modified on November 21st, 2011 - 12 Comments
Filed under: Banking, Online

About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!

12 Responses to “Ally Bank Offers Remote Check Deposit”

1
Jessica Says:
November 11th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Schwab’s checking account has the electronic deposit, including smart phone apps. It’s amazingly simple and still seems somewhat magical to me.
2
BG Says:
November 11th, 2011 at 4:38 pm
The Ally site on the subject:
http://www.ally.com/help/bank-echeck.html

Appears you need to use a scanner. Would prefer an Android application that uses the built-in camera for deposits… (USAA has had that feature since 2009).
3
harry Says:
November 11th, 2011 at 5:17 pm
I have ally and find their new check deposit system pretty useless. It is easier for me to just drop off the check at my bank’s ATM than scanning both sides and uploading. Why can’t I just snap a pic with my iphone? Seems like pretty basic technology IMO.
4
Ken Says:
November 12th, 2011 at 10:28 am
I gave Ally’s eCheck Deposit a try. As I mentioned in my blog post, it worked fairly well for me, but it’s not quick. You have to scan both sides of the check and ensure their software can read it okay. That gave me a little problem. But it’s quicker than mailing in a check or driving to the bank.
5
Julia Says:
November 13th, 2011 at 1:41 am
You may want to check the available amount. Legally they have to release $200 not $100 (Reg CC) unless they have good reason to hold the funds. This is a recent change, but affects all financial institutions. I would be wary of using a company that doesn’t follow government regulations.
6
Alan Says:
November 14th, 2011 at 1:59 pm
I just moved all/most of my banking from BofA to Ally after being nickle and dimed once too often by BofA (I still keep a basic, no-fee checking account open with BofA just in case). I really like Ally. Their e-Check deposit process works quite well but is a little slow. A few downsides for me: 1) Their wizard bombs on my Firefox 8 for Mac app all the time. Works fine in Safari; 2) You don’t receive any confirmation from Ally after you submit your check deposit. You simply have to wait and see if the deposit gets reflected in your account. This is annoying.

Otherwise I like the feature. It was a key determinant to me fully switching over to Ally. Now if only they allowed me to use my iPhone for deposits…
7
Sun Says:
November 14th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Ally bank was gmac. They still owe tarp. Maybe they can stick to fundamentals instead of developing features that may or may not be used by many people. I wouldn’t trust my money with them.
8
Eric Says:
November 14th, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Ahhhh….c’mon ING!
9
Bucky Says:
November 15th, 2011 at 3:27 am
It seemed like a great idea, but the execution was horrible. First, I tried to use my 8mp phone camera, which is capable of 200-300 dpi photos of checks. It rejected it because it couldn’t read the account number (although it was very clear in the photo).

Next I tried a real scanner. But even that took about 5 tries before it would accept it.

Until they improve this, I’m not going to use this method again. I’d rather mail the check in, saves time.
10
Bentley Says:
November 16th, 2011 at 11:11 am
I’ve been using mobile deposit for about 6 months with Conestoga Bank. It’s been seamless and has been great with rent checks and other oddball checks that I have come in. My trips to the bank have been cut down about 90%.

The only problem I had one time was that a signature… I guess a y or a j or something went down far enough to run into the micr line and screwed up the reading of my account number or routing number or whatever is under the signature line so the software rejected it.
11
Miles Prower Says:
March 6th, 2012 at 3:46 pm
I decided to use Ally’s remote deposit on my last paycheck. I don’t have a scanner set up on my computer, so I used my android phone. I snapped both sides and uploaded on FireFox to Ally. Two days later, my funds were available. So, it works great with a 5MP camera on a smartphone if you take a clear enough picture (got it on the 1st attempt). Just make sure you angle the camera properly so the check is somewhat rectangular. Mine wasn’t entirely perfect.

My only gripe is that there is no indication anywhere on the site whether your check is being processed or not. They could at least have a notice on your account page that a deposit was made and is processing. But it worked out in the end anyway. I just sent another check today with my phone. I’ll see how it goes. Overall, about 5 minutes. Beats driving to the bank.

For the record, I’d use direct deposit if my job offered it. ^_^
12
Warren Says:
August 1st, 2012 at 1:18 am
Actually, you can check the status of a deposit if you know where to look. Here are the instructions: After you are logged in, click on “Make a Deposit.” Click on “get started.” A new window will pop up. Click on “History” (next to “[?] Help” in the top right corner). It will list all your deposits for the past 120 days. You can click on “Details” to get more info including an image of the deposited check.

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