New technology is often seen as taking the person-to-person interaction out of banking, as customers are able to perform transactions on mobile or online platforms. However, video teller technology represents a way that banks can provide a human face anywhere, at any time. Ellie Chambers reports
Ever since NCR sold its first ATM to the now defunct US-based Society General Bank in 1989, it has been one of the dominant forces in the US ATM market and now has an influence that extends across the world.
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The vendor is estimated to provide nearly one-third of ATMs globally, has operations in over 180 countries and was ranked this year as the Asia-Pacific region’s biggest provider in terms of number of cash machines installed.
To maintain its hold on the global cash machine market, it is essential that NCR exploits technology to its advantage.
This is borne out by the firm’s quick adoption of interactive teller technology. According to NCR, in the 18 months since it launched the technology it has built up a customer base of over 70 customers in 30 US states and is now looking overseas.
Martin Shires, branch transformation marketing manager, tells RBI:
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By GlobalData"We’ve seen adoption quietly picking up and then over the last few months it’s just mushroomed to become very mainstream.
"We’ve been working with customers in Europe, the Middle East, India and Pakistan, Russia, China, Hong Kong, even as far away as South Africa."
Video killed the branch teller?
In the last few months of 2013, interactive tellers were making the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Tellers at the Bank of America, led by Alex Shalom, have been picketing branches, concerned that they will lose their jobs to the new technology.
In a statement released with his online petition against video tellers, Shalom writes: "Being a bank teller is all about building a personal connection with our customers, something that I couldn’t do through a video screen.
"Often our customers have complex questions – a local business attempting to pay an overseas vendor, or a mother who needs to wire money to a family member.
"Some are elderly or speak English as a second language. My co-workers and I care about meeting the needs of our customers, and we deserve to make a decent wage while doing so."
NCR counters criticism of the video technology by saying that far from allowing banks to cut staff, it sometimes requires them to hire more.
A spokesman says: "We have seen a lot of the customers that we have been working with on interactive teller end up hiring more people.
"The tellers that are moving into these video teller positions end up having a higher job satisfaction rate and being more productive from a sales perspective than those in traditional teller positions."
Shires explains that in some cases, banks are picking the best of their regular tellers and asking them to become interactive tellers.
He adds: "What several of the North American banks are now doing as standard is picking the very best of their existing tellers and repurposing them from being physical to video tellers, provided they are good on camera and they are retrainable."
A teller delivery system
The idea behind interactive teller technology is that it can deliver a teller to the customer regardless of location or time.
Tellers can help customers perform more complex transactions than they would be able to alone, walking them through banking activities or authorising transactions such as large cash withdrawals.
In contrast to many banking technologies, video tellers bring customers back to the branches.
Shires says: "We still choose our bank based on the proximity of the physical location, so branches are going to play a key role in still keeping good business and good relationships with our customers.
"We are trying to find ways to get leaner, smaller format branches out into places where they haven’t got the restraints or the operating costs of a really large facility."
Software is increasingly important in banking, but as a customer, when it comes to complex products like mortgages there is often no alternative to sitting down with a personal banker.
Video tellers can combine the ease and speed of using a cash machine with the person-to-person interaction of a personal banker.
Shires says: "What I imagine it as in my head is a teller delivery system.
"A teller does two things for you, they transact for you, performing both simple and complex transactions in front of you during bank hours and at the same time, based on that relationship, they figure out if there’s any other service you need as a regular customer.
"A smart ATM can ask you if you would like to take advantage of current mortgage rates and you can say yes, but you can’t go beyond what the software does."
In NCR’s Teller Assist system, the teller on the other end of the video link can override the ATM’s normal functions allowing you to take out more money than an unmanned cash machine would allow, or letting you take up an advertised financial product.
Shires explains: "Because the teller is in the video call centre, you know that they can be anywhere any hour of the day or night.
"So you’re getting the best of both worlds really, you’ve got the call centre capability and full control of the device in front of you. It’s not just a Skype call."
Future innovations
Looking to the future, NCR predicts that interactive tellers will become very much mainstream in the US this year and will start to gain popularity in Europe.
Shires says that NCR is also continuing to work on innovative products, including a system called Interactive Banker by which branch staff can override ATM controls with a tablet computer.
The next move is to roll out a product that allows customers to do even more from an ATM than they can at the moment. Shires says: "The innovation we’re next going onto is what we call Interactive Expert – it not only allows you to use the same modules as Interactive Teller for your transactions but it will be equipped with other modules so that you can do things like open accounts and increase your overdraft.
"You can do everything you and I would do as UK customers with a personal banker."
