Real estate agents in Canada can now use a smartphone or tablet device to send a buyer’s deposit for a home purchase to a real estate brokerage’s trust account.
Canadian buyers looking to send a deposit normally write a check to a real estate agent, according to The Chronicle Herald, which says it’s the “most comprehensive information source in Atlantic Canada.”
The agent then delivers it to their brokerage, which puts it in a trust account and gets a bank receipt.
That can be a slow process. And if the check isn’t deposited into a trust account within a certain number of hours (usually 24 to 48 hours), a deal could go south.
Another deposit delivery channel is an email transfer, but many banks won’t allow enough money to be sent to cover a deposit through that means.
A screencap of Exact Deposit’s website.
ExactDeposit is supposed to allow agents and buyers to avoid any hassle or delays.
An agent can use ExactDeposit to send an invoice to their buyer client. The buyer can then use a Visa, MasterCard or American Express card to fire off the deposit to a brokerage trust account.
There’s just one catch: The buyer has to pay “as little as 2.9 percent of the deposit.”
That fee apparently hasn’t deterred some agents from embracing the technology. Thirteen brokerages have partnered with ExactDeposit to offer the service, The Chronicle Herald reported.