Last year, we mentioned that USAA, a mid-sized American bank, was going to provide the technology to virtually deposit checks using a scanner and Wi-Fi.
A year and a half later, USAA is the first out of the gate with an iPhone app that offers the convenient option of depositing checks by taking a picture of each side with your phone’s camera. A touch of the send button emails it to the bank, and the paper check can then be disposed of.
The simplicity of this app will no doubt send competitors in banking and mobile alike scrambling for solutions as [...]

While British retailer Tesco has been offering financial products for several years now, the Financial Times believes that the grocer is about to become a serious threat to UK banks. With 6m bank accounts and £4.5bn in deposit accounts the paper believes that they can easily leverage the public’s distrust of established financial institutions and launch into checking accounts and home loans:
Tesco declared its ambitions to become the “people’s bank” yesterday, capitalising on public disillusionment with traditional lenders to launch an aggressive expansion into financial services.
…Tesco is planning to open 30 bank branches in its stores this year and to [...]

An article in the Telegraph argues that the current-shake up of the market has reversed the oft-predicted view that Western economies are drifting from a manufacturing to services focus. The paper says that oil, pharmaceuticals and technology production is making a come back in the UK while retail and banking is declining:
Two years ago financial services dominated – overtaking even the combined might of our oil giants: BP, Shell and British Gas. Not surprisingly oil and gas has regained the number one spot – by some considerable margin. The pharmaceutical sector takes second place followed by the resources sector, which [...]