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Mobile Banking

Many banks allow you to do your banking from your mobile phone or tablet. Your bank may have a mobile app to make it easy to keep a close track on your finances, pay bills or transfer funds right from your smartphone. Follow these tips to get the best of these benefits and protect yourself:

  • Make sure that your mobile device and your banking app are password protected.
  • Access your accounts on secured connections.
  • Sign up for text message alerts to know when transactions hit your account, or if your account balance goes below a minimum threshold.
  • Use the fraud protection features, so you will know when someone, other than you, tries to change your password or account information.

Take extra care if you use mobile banking apps to transfer money between you and a seller, or another consumer. Your bank may show that the funds were transferred immediately, but it may take a few days for the transaction to clear. If someone is paying you, he or she could reverse the transaction during that waiting period, and you wouldn't get the money. Or a seller could collect on your mobile payment without delivering the item you purchased.

Mobile Deposits

You can take a picture of a check with your smartphone's camera, and then use your bank's mobile app to upload and deposit it in your account. Remember, just because you make a deposit through your mobile app doesn't mean that the funds are immediately available. Some banks hold the funds on mobile deposits for more than a week, before the funds are available to you. This wait time is longer than the standard one- or two-day funds hold for a deposit made at a local branch or ATM. This extended hold can cause you to overdraw your account. Read this before you snap that picture of your check:

  • Find out your bank's rules on the timing of funds availability for mobile deposits.
  • Hold on to the physical check, just in case there is a problem. After it has cleared, you should shred it.
  • Find out if there is a fee to use this feature. If so, is it monthly or per transaction?
  • Upload the check over a secured network, to protect your account and that of the person who wrote you the check.
  • Read your bank's terms and conditions for mobile deposits.

Contact the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation for more information on mobile banking (https://www.fdic.gov/).

U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). (2016, January). Mobile banking. In Consumer action handbook (p. 6). Retrieved December 2, 2016, from https://www.usa.gov/

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