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Bank Shot, which boasts one of the most clever names ever devised for a financial app, has been busy since Inman’s initial review three years ago.
The app was developed to electronically deposit earnest money checks, security deposits for renters, commissions and other forms of cash needed to close and streamline real estate deals. Bank Shot gives agents another solution to mitigate the delays and risk of carrying paper checks from transaction meetings to banks or elsewhere.
Initially deemed somewhat clunky from a user interface (UI) perspective, Bank Shot nonetheless succeeded in its purpose. In essence, it was doing years ago what many major banks are doing now. Moreover, Bank Shot beat Modus, a new digital deposit app by half a decade.
Bank Shot’s developers have somewhat altered their direction by pushing their pitch at title companies and their trust accounts, which are frequently the target and subject of wire fraud.
Naturally, the need to reduce the risk of real estate-based fraud is at an all-time high, as it occurs to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
Title companies can see checks immediately land in escrow accounts with all stakeholder and property data intact.
Still, real estate agents have many reasons to consider an app like Bank Shot too, such as paying broker fees and referrals.
Bank Shot’s product is more secure than the banking industry’s, claims Bank Shot Co-founder Glenn Drake in an email to Inman.
“It is more compliant, functional, convenient for agents and customers and has the cyber secure protocols matching and exceeding the banking and remote check industries,” Drake said.
The patent-pending Bank Shot is a one-way, deposit-only channel for funds transfer, and it allows for account managers to review, hold, refuse or deposit funds. Accepted monies can be made available the next day.
The process is encrypted, two-factor authenticated, and rests on Amazon’s Cloud. Accepted checks are run through Deluxe to confirm Check 21 standards, which is a federally-backed process for digitally duplicating paper checks. This eliminates the time spent physically transporting checks to financial institutions.
Check images are deleted automatically from the app, and not stored on any installed picture app.
Bank Shot’s new version allows for white labeling. This means that brokerages can brand the app as a marketing and transaction management solution. Additionally, checks can be deposited into multiple accounts across a number of banks.
Available for iOS and Android, this is a smart, practical app that agents would be wise to consider branding under their transaction management tech stack.
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