As cheque usage declines, mobile RDC is becoming the preferred deposit method for a growing number of bank customers, says the analyst house. Celent expects RDC to account for a third of retail bank deposits by year-end 2015 and half by 2016.

As RDC becomes a mature market in the US, most distributed capture methods, whether through the branch, ATM or at a merchant location, have plateaued. With more than half of mobile banking users scanning their cheques on the handset, demand is now growing among small business and commercial users.

The switch is likely to accelerate the decline in branch foot traffic, says Celent analyst Bob Meara.

“As cheque usage continues to decline, mobile RDC will become increasingly relevant — not just for mobile use cases, but more broadly,” he says. “Mobile RDC is becoming the new scanner, with banks racing to offer mRDC to small business and commercial clients. This will have a profound effect on the branch channel at many institutions as branch visits are replaced with digital deposits.”

A separate study from Mercator Advisory Group finds that consumers are beginning to rely more heavily on online banking as their digital "branch" or banking source for managing their accounts and for customer service. That digital channel, while now primarily computer-based, is shifting toward mobile devices, as more consumers prefer to make bank transactions using their smartphones. From a survey universe of 3000 consumers it finds that 86% of US adults now manage their accounts electronically and 79% make banking transactions electronically.