ORLANDO, Fla. — Attendance seemed to be the topic on everyone's mind last night during the opening reception of the Banking Administration Institute's annual Retail Delivery Conference & Expo. Economic pressures are expected to have an adverse effect on attendance numbers, but not attendance quality. Exhibitors last night expressed some concern, but most felt hopeful that the show would ultimately be a success.
For BAI, the economic downturn, which has impacted some of the RD conference's biggest attendees — Wells Fargo, Bank of America, etc. — was unfortunate. Last year, BAI pulled in its highest attendee numbers in recent memory after revamping efforts to attract more bankers and exhibitors.
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| Attendance was down, but spirits were high at the Banking Administration Institute's annual Retail Delivery Conference & Expo. |
But today, the official first day of the conference, the focus will be on technology, which thus far seems surprisingly fresh. After meeting with a handful of exhibitors from the show floor yesterday, a common theme began to emerge — a focus on mobile technology and an interest in industry integration and cross-over.
Though RD has historically been a show that focuses solely on banking and financial technology, this year a number of solutions on display also cater to the retail environment. Why would bankers be interested in technology for restaurants, for instance? Because there's always a payment involved, says Mark Grossi, vice president of advanced development for NCR Corp.
"This year we're focusing on a number of industries," Grossi said. "The big difference this year is that we are focusing on broader technology, and we're looking at more from the customer perspective, regardless of the industry. It's all about the user experience."
For NCR, that message is not new. The Dayton, Ohio-based ATM and self-service technology provider has been heralding its efforts to take its financial self-service expertise to other
industries for the last couple of years.
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| With Microsoft Surface, NCR demonstrated how banking and restaurant applications could provide a more pleasing customer experience three to five years down the road. For instance, if a customer came into the branch and wanted information about a cell phone, he could place the phone on the surface and, using near field communication, the technology can pull information stored on the phone to customize the user experience. |
In its SelfServ Horizons room at RD, NCR demonstrated how banking and restaurant transactions could use near-field communications through mobile-phone chips on a Microsoft Surface application. NCR, working closely with Microsoft, is envisioning a nearly paperless branch and an interactive ordering option for restaurant patrons in the near future, Grossi says.
And at this year's RD conference, it's clear that other companies once focused on the ATM space are following suit.
INETCO and Stratus are examples. The two companies recently announced a partnership that allows Stratus to resell INETCO's transaction-monitoring solutions, BankLink and Insight. INETCO, focused on banking and retail, and Stratus, historically focused on retail and healthcare, are forging a relationship that will take transaction monitoring to every industry where mission-critical transactions occur, says Stratus' Joe Hyland.
"It's a perfect marriage, because our customers, whether in healthcare or elsewhere, want this information," Hyland said. "They can't have a network go down, and they want to monitor transactions, just as a bank would."
