(18 June 2015 – Britain) Lloyds Banking Group is closer to accepting cheque payments through mobile phone apps, with 1700 of its staff testing a pilot scheme to test the system.
The system would allow Lloyds customers to take a photo of the cheque on their smartphone and pay it directly into their bank account, avoiding the need to visit a bank branch.
The trial is set for four-weeks to allow for any security or performance problems in the IT system.
Following any refinements, another trial is planned for later in the year, potentially with customers.
At this stage, Barclays is the only bank to offer mobile cheque payments, with over 30,000 of its customers signed up to use the system with their iPhone app.
Currently Barclays’ app only works with cheques paid from one Barclays account to another with the same bank, there are plans to roll the service out to Android phone users in the coming months.
A recent change in regulations means banks will no longer have to take a photo of each cheque paid in by customers, and still transfer the physical paper form each day from the branch to a central clearing system – the paper document will no longer be required.