PayPal partners with Ingo Money on Venmo check deposit

PayPal’s Venmo has launched a new “Cash a Check” feature on its mobile app to some customers. The offering is made in partnership with Ingo Money and its parent, First Century Bank.

The “Cash a Check” feature allows Venmo users to deposit printed, payroll and government checks directly from the Venmo app. Cash a Check is powered by Ingo Money’s Mobile Check Load service.

“We’re always looking for new ways to make it easier for our community to access and manage their money, especially as people continue to experience financial hardships amidst the global pandemic,” said Darrell Esch, senior vice president and GM at Venmo, in a Monday press release.

“By introducing the Venmo Cash a Check feature, we are not only enabling our customers to access their money quickly and safely from the comfort of their own homes but are also waiving all fees for cashing government issued checks to ensure customers can use their stimulus funds to pay for the things they need most," Esch said.

Access to the funds can be made available using “Money in Minutes” and “Money in Days” funding options. Using Money in Minutes, the funds can be made available within minutes or up to one hour, costing the user 1% for payroll and government checks with a pre-printed signature, with a minimum fee of $5 and 5% for all other accepted check types, including hand-signed payroll and government checks, with a minimum fee of $5. There is no fee for receiving the funds with the Money in Days option.

Venmo is waiving the Money in Minutes fees for all government stimulus checks submitted within the app for a limited time. PayPal has set a $400,000 cap for stimulus checks and the offer period will end once the acceptance cap has been reached, based on the terms of the marketing program.

According to the terms and conditions, for the Money in Minutes program, Ingo agrees to review the check within one hour of submission for approval. If the check is approved with funds transferred to a Venmo user’s account and the check turns out to be fraudulent or Ingo is unable to collect the funds from the check writer, Ingo Money and its parent First Century Bank will absorb the loss. Both Ingo Money and PayPal reserve the right to collect financial and transaction history data from credit bureaus and other reporting agencies.

If a user chooses to utilize the Money in Days option, then the funds are made available in a 10-day window if approved by Ingo Money and the check is not returned unpaid.

Enrollment in the Cash a Check feature requires initial and ongoing approval by Ingo Money.

The terms also stipulate that check deposit limits are combined across PayPal and Venmo apps. A user can submit checks with a face value from $5 to $5,000. Multiple checks can be submitted daily with a total combined value of no more than $5,000 per day and $15,000 per month.

Despite their continual decline in usage, checks remain an important part of the payments industry ecosystem. According to the Federal Reserve, 14.5 billion checks were written in 2018 for a total value of $25.8 trillion, down from 18.1 billion checks and $29.19 trillion in 2015. In comparison, 131.2 billion card payments were made in 2018 for a total value of $7.08 trillion.