We are a small community bank looking into the costs/considerations of going to check imaging. Is anyone willing to share any customer surveys that they have used on their customer base to help assess customer interest?

When we converted some years ago, the interest was ours. We forced it on them because of the economies it provided us. We discussed allowing exceptions and decided against that because of the headaches.

There were some who didn't like it initially and there were those who absolutely loved it. Once you get beyond the fact that the images they get or that you provide are evidence to most businesses that may want a copy, they're fine.

Since so many banks do this, it wasn't a matter of, "I don't want your new technology, I'm going down the street to bank". We lost a few accounts, I'm sure, but we also made a lot of friends. Today is isn't a big deal at all, its just the way it is.

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Andy Zavoina
Opinions stated are not necessarily that of my employer.

I don't have a survey to share with you, but we are also a small community bank and we made this change a couple years ago. We notified customers well in advance and then had a couple of transition months when we sent checks and images both. We did offer customers the option of staying with checks, but we found that relatively few wanted it.

We converted to imaging a couple of years ago and since we have an older customer base thought we would have major PR problems. But we had none. We sent out letters a couple of months in advance to all DDA customers explaining that we were converting and why. We have only had a couple of people complain out of the thousands of customers we have. We didn't offer the option of staying with checks; all had to go to image. We don't send the back of the checks either, but if a customer requests the back of a check we provide it at no cost. We have had relatively few requests.

I haven't checked in lately with the threads so I hope I'm not repeating a question here (my "search" mechanism doesn't seem to be working), but is there any sort of documentation available anywhere that states that check images are considered "legal" copies under federal or state law?

Thanks a bunch.

You need to look to your state law. I know this is spelled out in Georgia and Florida - probably other states as well.

mo: Rule 1003 of the Federal Rules of Evidence makes copies as valid as the original unless there is some genuine question about their authenticity. Your state rules might be different.

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This is a personal observation that should not be taken as legal advice nor relied upon for any purpose.

mo: I agree w/Ted; almost every state rule of evidence will provide some way to admit a copy (or duplicate) of a check if the original cant be produced and there is no reason to question that the copy (duplicate) is genuine.

What I worry about is fraud.

There is no way to get a forensic document examiner to state his/her opinion that a fraudster is the person that forged a customer's drawer signature or endorsement from an image. By switching to imaghing (or truncating checks btwn banks voluntarily) the bank is acknowledging that it will be unable to bring criminal cahrges against fraudsters, b/c you cant perform forensic document examination on an image.

I AM NOT ENGAGED IN PROVIDING LEGAL ADVICE AND THE VIEWS EXPRESSED ARE NOT THOSE OF MY EMPLOYER