USAA, the Texas-based bank which serves military personnel and has a wealth management division, has launched a new mobile cheque deposit facility for the iPhone – a move which is surely to be imitated as demand for mobile banking gains momentum.

Through the Deposit@Mobile feature, which is part of USAA’s free mobile banking app for the iPhone, clients of USAA are able to deposit cheques from anywhere with a wireless signal, the bank said in a statement.

To use the facility, users first take a photo of the cheque with their iPhone’s camera and send the image to USAA. The bank then verifies the deposit information and signature to complete the transaction.

The launch of the iPhone app builds on USAA’s Deposit@Home service, which was launched in 2006 to allow the deposit of cheques using a home computer and scanner.

Increasing demand for mobile banking services looks set to transform the way that banks conduct their business. More than 150 million people will use their mobile phones to view their bank details by 2011, according to a report by Juniper Research, and while developed East Asian countries currently lead the way in using the technology, Europe and North America are catching up fast.

Mobile banking capabilities are even more important for USAA clients, the bank said, as nearly half of its one million mobile users are actively serving in the military, and are deployed all over the world.

"Our members are on-the-go and need to be able to manage their accounts at all times, from any location. The convenience of mobile access is essential to delivering the highest possible level of customer service,” said Wayne Peacock, USAA's executive vice president of Enterprise Business Operations.

Some 14 per cent of USAA’s 7.2 million clients currently use mobile banking – a take-up rate that USAA say is three times greater than other large banks report.

USAA plans to extend its mobile banking services to other devices, such as the Blackberry and Google Android in due course.