Over five years ago, I’d written a post titled Cheque Deposit Systems — Are They Really Worth It? During the next couple of years, I found this contraption to be down every other time I went to pay my credit card bill.
My overall poor experience with this technology led me to conclude in a follow up post titled Technologies Without Tradeoffs that CDS was a bad tradeoff between cost reduction and customer convenience.
I then discovered Visa CardPay, the online credit card bill payment service from Visa. I use it extensively from my bank’s online banking portal. Ergo I’ve managed to stay away from CDS for the past few years.
Until last month, that is.
Visa CardPay only permits payments up to INR 49,999 (~US$ 1,000) per day. Since my latest bill was higher than the ceiling, I was compelled to visit the branch to pay it. I braced myself to find the CDS down and mentally worked out the following contingency plans (all painful): Repeat Visa CardPay over multiple days, or travel 10 extra kilometers to drop the cheque in a third-party courier company’s drop box (ever since it installed CDS, the bank removed all drop boxes from its premises).
Thankfully, I was spared the pain.
No, not because the CDS worked flawlessly.
When I reached the bank’s 24/7 self-service center, I couldn’t find the CDS where I last remembered seeing it. I went inside the branch to inquire where it had been moved.
An embarrassed receptionist told me sheepishly that the bank had dismantled the Cheque Deposit System because it had inordinately increased transaction processing times, led to longer lines and failed too often for comfort. In its place, there’s a drop box now.
Yaaay!
I dropped the cheque into the drop box and got out of the branch in less than a minute. As I used to do before CDS screwed up the scene a few years ago.
As a customer, I’m glad that the bank scrapped the Cheque Deposit System.
However, as a career IT professional, I fear that actions like this don’t bode well for the greater adoption of technology in financial services.
UPDATE DATED 16 JULY 2020:
It’s seven years since the above post was published.
I have never visited this bank branch. I have also not seen a Cheque Deposit System anywhere. Visa Card Pay still does not permit more than INR 49,999 per transaction but it now allows multiple payments per day, so I’ve been able to make all my credit card bill payments online. But some things don’t change: My bank has still not fulfilled my Visa Card Pay feature request!
Wish @HDFC_Bank VisaCardPay saved my credit card for future payments so that I don't have to fill this form every month. #BetterCX #CROTip pic.twitter.com/f80FSSsaM9
— Ketharaman Swaminathan (@s_ketharaman) August 30, 2017