The past 5+ years in the RDC Industry can be typified with one word: Change. RDC has evolved from a check depositing service for banks and large corporations to now be defined as a payments and data platform for all. In the early days of the industry, thick-client, in-house solutions were the dominant or only option. Today, hosted, browser-based solutions are the norm. Pricing and costs of implementing RDC have likewise evolved. Hosted solutions enabled "pay-per-sip" pricing models and browser-based solutions made RDC more accessible by vastly reducing the capital and variable costs of RDC implementation.
One of the remaining hurdles for the industry has been the upfront costs associated with the RDC Hardware. Almost all Hardware Manufacturers addressed this by developing new models specifically targeted at the low volume / small business segment. While this indeed helped that segment of the market, the higher volume segment of the market still was concerned with the upfront costs of the RDC Hardware, combined with declining check volumes as a whole. When asked why Financial Institutions have not implemented branch capture, for example, many financial institutions cited a lack of capital required or an unclear payback on investment.
The introduction of a “pay-per-click” pricing model for RDC Hardware all but eliminates any upfront capital requirements and can make the payback on investment much clearer and much faster. So… If there are any Banks and Credit Unions (or any other potential candidates for any type of RDC) reading this who have not fully implemented RDC for their customers or for their branches, it is time to take another look. The RDC business case just got better. Again.
While Burroughs Payment Systems is one of the first to make this type of announcement (some companies already offer scanner leasing), we believe this pricing model will be offered by many others in the industry (eventually).
The Burroughs Press Release can be found at http://www.remotedepositcapture.com/news/news.aspx?aid=30600 .