POINT.SHOOT.DEPOSIT . . . is this the end of paper-based commerce and banking?

This just slid across our desk late last night and we figured we’d share our thoughts on the matter with the reading public. Chase Bank is introducing a rather revolutionary method to banking that seems inevitable, only in retrospect. What Chase unveiled is Chase Quick Deposit, which boasts the tagline “deposit checks with two camera clicks”. Essentially what the technology allows is to deposit checks to your account by taking a couple of snaps of said checks with your iPhone.

Wait, hold the horn. . . . iPhone deposits?!

That’s when our noggins went into overdrive.

‘An idea of this caliber, so simple yet forward thinking, couldn’t have waited this long to rear its brilliant head?’ one may think.

Around Counsel HQ, reactions ranged from, “I wonder what will spring forth from the fraudulent. . . . it's only a matter of time.” To “wouldn’t it be better just to do away with checks?”

The latter left me thinking, ‘yeah, wouldn’t it be better if they did do away with checks. . .” and while I was in that head space I thought, ‘not only should checks be done away with, but so should most paper forms of commerce (train tickets, receipts, boarding passes, etc) It's all so terribly archaic and wasteful.’

So, with this in your thought cannon this morning, I turn the question over to you my dear readers:

Should paper-based forms of commerce be done away with?

Discuss . . .