Mail banking is a service provided by a

financial institution Financial institutions, sometimes called banking institutions, are business entities that provide services as intermediaries for different types of financial monetary transactions. Broadly speaking, there are three major types of financial insti ...

which allows its customers to deposit

cheque A cheque, or check (American English; see spelling differences) is a document that orders a bank (or credit union) to pay a specific amount of money from a person's account to the person in whose name the cheque has been issued. The pers ...

s into their account by

mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letter (message), letters, and parcel (package), parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid ...

. It is primarily used by

virtual bank A direct bank (sometimes called a branch-less bank or virtual bank) is a bank that offers its services only via the Internet, email, and other electronic means, often including telephone, online chat, and mobile check deposit. A direct bank has no ...

s (as they may not offer

branches A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term ''twig'' usually ...

or ATMs that accept deposits) and by customers who live too far from a branch. Typically, the institution that advertises such a service will provide its own

business reply mail Freepost is a postal service provided by various postal administrations, whereby a person sends mail without affixing postage, and the recipient pays the postage when collecting the mail. Freepost differs from self-addressed stamped envelopes ...

envelopes as a courtesy.

See also