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Citibank's New ATM Depositing Routine: A Small Thing to Some, a Vast Improvement to Me

By Rain Noe - July 28, 2011

in Tech

Good product design ideas once came in the form of simple, discrete objects. You would invent, say, a hammer with a claw on one side to remove nails, or one of those apple-peeling contraptions, or a piece of material that you'd place around a bare lightbulb to shield your eyes from the glare. And those objects provided an experience superior to what came before them—carrying a second nail-pulling tool, peeling an apple with your fingernails, squinting to avoid glare.

Increasingly our better experiences aren't coming from new, simple objects, but the interconnectedness of technology. The iPod is a single object, yes, but it's really a perfect storm of things—plastic molding, metalworking, hard drive storage, software, a small LCD, interface design—that was wrangled into a rectangle. All of those things except the interface design and exact form factor existed independently for years, but it was that masterful blending, coupled to the interface, that made it a hit.This morning I stopped by the Citibank ATM to deposit a month's worth of paychecks. I realize I am hopelessly behind the times, but if your employer doesn't want to give you Direct Deposit, what can you do. So I still need scrips of paper denoting my remuneration, and those scrips have to be filed along with a little envelope and a form I have to individually fill out every time, then bring to an ATM and feed into a slot. Which means every few months I swing by the bank to pick up a stack of deposit envelopes and forms, and I spend that afternoon filling out the forms en masse to make my ATM drops quicker.

I even had a rubber stamp made up to fill out some parts of the deposit slip more quickly, using trial and error to get the stamp's letters to line up with the form's lines. And that rubber stamp periodically needs to be refilled. So to deposit a check I need the check, a deposit envelope from the bank, a deposit slip, a pen, the rubber stamp, ink for the stamp, and the time to glance up and check the date and fill out the forms.

But this morning something was different. The first two machines I tried in the vestibule said they could not take deposits at all. At the third machine, as I punched onscreen buttons and went through the deposit sequence, an unprompted video animation started playing. It showed a hand inserting a paycheck—a bare paycheck, no envelope, no filled-out deposit slip—into the slot of the machine. No way, I thought. I ripped open the envelopes, got rid of the deposit slips and stuck the checks into the slot one by one. The machine ate my checks and a moment later the numbers in my account moved accordingly.

Finally someone has assembled the perfect storm of scanning technology, networked computers, computer animation and video editing (for the simple, language-less demonstration of how to do it) so that I don't have to fill out the goddamn form and Citibank doesn't have to print up millions of envelopes. In retrospect the two machines that wouldn't take deposits are probably in the midst of having the scanners installed or the software upgraded.

I know it seems like a small thing, and some of you are already using your cell phones to photograph checks and deposit them that way (which I cannot do due to amount limits), but this small thing has vastly simplified my life and saved ink, paper and time. And it's unheralded; I saw nothing on Citibank's website or in the news denoting this new feature. I don't know if any industrial designers were even involved in developing this process, but this morning I had a better experience because someone or some team thought about the problem and took the time to assemble a technological solution.

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twogs

13 years ago

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Chase and BOA both have it. Chase is great.. you can slide in 30 checks no deposit slip and it prints a long receipt with all of your images. finally no standing in line at the bank. plus, you can do it 24/7 - amazing stuff.
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reyrei

13 years ago

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I couldn't agree more with aquavit. When I read your article I was going to respond with the exact same feedback: late adopter big bank afraid of promoting something as new when many people are already enjoying what it is truly a great innovation. My bank also installed this technology at their ATMs a while back, and I have been enjoying this for some time, and what a difference does it make.
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W

13 years ago

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I think it may just be Citibank. Bank of America ATM in SC has been able to accept bare check and cash deposits for a couple of years now. You insert the stack face up and it scans them individually and displays the results on the screen for confirmation. It even takes cash and reads handwritten checks too. If you own a small business, this really speeds up the process of depositing your receipts.
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Adam

13 years ago

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Wachovia/Wells Fargo just got these as well. You can put in a stack of bills/checks all at once and it will parse them, no need to stick them in one at a time. Awesome technology.
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aquavit

13 years ago

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I think this is kind of a late-adopter-to-technology problem that the big national banks have. For example, I bank at a regional Midwestern bank. Its ATM's have had this deposit feature you're describing since around 2008, and small businesses have the option of doing check deposit by snapping a photo of the check with their smartphone. Not only this, my online banking software with them shows me all pending transactions that have been made with my debit/credit card, and they seamlessly integrate with Mint or Quicken software.
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