The same headache that faces any business that takes credit cards the charges levied by the outfits that issue the cards pushed the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles to begin accepting checks on its Web site.
The DMV in the next fiscal year expects to pay more than $6 million as credit card companies levy fees that average about 2 percent of each credit card transaction handled by DMV.
With an average transaction of more than $200 for vehicle registrations, that 2 percent starts adding up.
And the fees are growing, says Dennis Colling, chief of administration for the DMV.
The state agency accepts four credit cards on its Web site, and their usage by consumers has been growing by more than 30 percent a year.
On the other hand, that growth ofWeb use also reflects shorter lines at local DMV offices and less pressure to add staff to the agency.
In the last 12 months, the agency completed more than 350,000 transactions online.
The Web site now outperforms any single DMV office in the state.
"We want to increase use of the Internet," Colling said a few days ago.
One key to controlling the cost of online services, he said, is the paperless check option that DMV began offering on its Web site July 1.
Electronic checks can be processed for less than a dollar each, said DMV Director Ginny Lewis.
And DMV customers appear to like it as well.More than 250 motorists chose the electronic check option on the first day the service was offered, and more than 1,000 wrote electronic checks in the first week.
The informationtechnology unit of DMV developed the software that allows users to write electronic checks.
The software fills in everything but the account number and bank routing information for the consumer.
Development of the software took about six months.
"IT projects always take longer than you think," Colling said.
First Data Corp.
of Denver handles the collection of the checks under a contract with the state government.While the DMV was the first state agency to provide electronic check service on its Web site, the contract with First Data Corp.
covers other state agencies as well as local governments that want to use the service.
Next up: Acceptance of electronic checks at the self-service kiosks in DMV offices statewide.
Those kiosks, another tactic in the agency's campaign to handle work remotely, got a boost when the Legislature this year reduced the cost of a noncommercial drivers license by 50 cents.
That allowed consumers using the kiosks which don't accept coins- to pay cash renewals.
