The San Diego company is launching its mobile photo bill pay services for the first time with U.S. Bank, enabling millions of customers to snap a photo of a paper bill to quickly add a payee or pay off a bill. The service, which can be used via smartphones and tablets starting early next year, is integrated into U.S. Bank’s mobile app.

How it works

A user snaps a photo of a bill and Mitek’s technology cleans up and corrects the image, isolates and extracts the data, transmits the encrypted information to the bank, and then sends it back to the user, who can confirm the information and decide how much they want to pay. If it’s a bill from a new company, the app will establish them as a new payee. Users just click pay and then the transaction is complete. Or they can set up recurring payments if they choose.

Now, while it might seem everyone you know already pays bills online, there’s still a big opportunity for banks to extend bill pay to mobile phones using a camera. Mitek CEO Jim DeBello told me that there are 17-25 million who pay bills online and another 22 million who don’t pay online but have a smartphone. And there’s also an even larger group of 60 million people who pay some prepaid bills, often traveling to payment centers to pay in person. He said banks have the opportunity to make the paying experience more simple for existing online billing customers and pull in new users who have shied away from online payments.

DeBello thinks that mobile photo bill pay could be bigger than mobile check deposit, which Mitek started rolling out with banking partners two years ago. He said $10 billion in checks have been deposited remotely via mobile devices. Now that consumers are getting used to the idea of using their camera to input data, they will likely be even more comfortable paying off bills with their smartphone or tablet.

“We look at the mobile camera as a next generation keyboard,” said DeBello. “The key is leveraging existing user habits. They’re already using a camera and we’re using that habit for handling pain points in daily financial transactions.”

Advantages for banks and consumers

For banks, mobile photo bill pay allows them to better engage and retain their customers, enjoy some cost savings by handling less paper, and they can also make some money if they choose to offer expedited bill payments for people who wait until the last minute.

For consumers, it’s a way to pay more easily with a device that’s always on and with them. And it can get people over the hump of starting online bill pay because it makes the onboarding process easier. For some people, entering in your payee information is just enough of a barrier to keep them relying on paper checks or other payment options. Also, paying via picture also allows users to have a photo trail of payments in case of a dispute.

Mitek is pretty much the undisputed leader in offering mobile imaging software to banks. It has more than 500 banks using its check deposit service including the top 10 banks. But getting the algorithms to work with bills is harder than scanning checks. The data is largely structured but the bills come in up to 100,000 formats. That puts more pressure on Mitek’s software to identify and pull out the right data. But it’s creating a big opportunity if consumer get on board with mobile photo bill pay. The service will roll out to more banks in 2013.

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Google has now invested $680 million into clean power projects, a size which rivals a large VC or private equity greentech fund or Department of Energy program. While Google’s investments in utility-scale centralized solar projects and transmission lines for clean power could be seen as a way for Google to source cleaner energy for its data centers, home rooftop solar installations are pretty far removed from Google’s data center energy, and Google insists the SolarCity investment is about returns and environmentalism.

Founded in 2006, SolarCity offers sales, installation, financing, operation and maintenance of rooftop solar systems in-house. In contrast to many solar installers, SolarCity offers financing options — covering the upfront cost of the system — which can be critical for consumers and businesses given that solar electric systems are too expensive for an average buyers. SolarCity offers both leases (a fixed monthly fee) and power purchase agreements, which require customers to pay the amount of electricity generated but not the equipment and installation costs.

SolarCity has raised at least a dozen funds similar to the Google one, but it usually raises these funds from banks like Citi  and U.S. Bancorp (and has also worked with utility PG&E). Lyndon Rive, SolarCity CEO, said the biggest hurdle to getting its solar projects deployed is raising project financing, and he hopes other corporations will follow Google’s lead.

Google’s $280 million fund could help deploy between 7,000 and 9,000 rooftop solar projects depending on the size of the systems, said Rive, in an interview this week. Because there are so few solar rooftop projects in the U.S. right now, the fund could theoretically help deploy one in 10 solar rooftop projects over the next two years, said Google Director of Green Business Operations Rick Needham.

Needham wouldn’t go into details about exactly what kind of return Google gets from such a fund, but Rive referred to investing in solar as a “good and fair,” return and a”safe investment.” When I asked Needham if the SolarCity fund was about the largest investment Google plans to make in clean power, he said “If we find attractive opportunities that meet our criteria, then we’re willing to make more large-scale investments.”

Over the past few months, Google has emerged as a major investor in clean power. As I’ve written before (GigaOM Pro subscription required), giving Google more control over the energy it needs for its data centers could be a smart investment in the long run, in addition to returns from clean power projects in the short term. In addition to the $280 million SolarCity fund, Google has invested in:

• The world’s largest wind farm — in Oregon. Google is investing $100 million in the world’s largest wind farm, the 845 MW Shepherds Flat project under construction in Oregon.
• North Dakota wind farm. Google is investing $38.8 million into 169.5 MW worth of wind projects developed by NextEra Energy Resources in North Dakota.
• East Coast wind farm backbone. Google has invested part of the fund for an East Coast transmission line that is meant to link offshore wind farms, and which recently got an approved rate of return for the project at 12.59 percent.
• Wind power from Iowa wind farm. Google’s first deal for its subsidiary Google Energy — which can buy and sell power on the wholesale electricity markets — plans to buy wind power from 114 MW of wind energy via a wind farm in Iowa owned by NextEra Energy Resources.
• Wind power from Oklahoma wind farm. Google’s second deal via its subsidiary Google Energy is to buy 100 MW of power from a wind farm that’s under construction in Oklahoma by NextEra Energy Resources.
• BrightSource’s solar thermal project. Google plans to invest $168 million into a solar thermal project being built by startup BrightSource Energy in California’s Mojave Desert.
• German solar project. Google is investing €3.5 million ($5 million USD) into a solar photovoltaic farm in Brandenburg an der Havel, Germany, which is near Berlin.
• Greentech startups (these are small investments). Google (through a combo of Google Ventures and Google.org) has invested in at least nine “greentech” startups, including battery maker ActaCell, electric vehicle maker Aptera, efficient car maker Next Autoworks, geothermal company Alta Rock, neighbor-to-neighbor car sharing company RelayRides, weather insurance company WeatherBill, smart grid company Silver Spring Networks, biofuel maker Cool Planet Biofuels, and efficient power gear conversion tech startup Transphorm.

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