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A look at what's new in cash management services: A conversation with U.S. Bank

At the recent ATM Industry Association US conference in Orlando, ATM Marketplace caught up with Laura L. Jones, a senior vice president at U.S. Bank and, since November, director of the bank's cash management services business unit. She offered a look at two service enhancements the bank has introduced at the request of its CMS customers.

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March 5, 2019 by Suzanne Cluckey — Owner, Suzanne Cluckey Communications

Just over five months ago, U.S. Bank announced that it would sell its ATM managed services business and MoneyPass surcharge-free network to Fiserv for $690 million. At the time of the sale, Tim Welsh, U.S. Bank vice chairman of consumer banking sales and support, said that the move would allow the bank to reinvest in its core businesses.

One of those businesses is U.S. Bank Cash Management Services. In recent months, this business unit has been at work reviewing and refining services provided to the financial institutions, independent ATM deployers and retail operators that make up its customer base.

At the recent ATM Industry Association US conference in Orlando, ATM Marketplace caught up with Laura L. Jones, a senior vice president at U.S. Bank and, since November, director of the bank's cash management services business unit. She offered a look at two new initiatives the bank is now rolling out to customers.

Q: Let's start by talking about how your current cash services program was created.

A: Sure. So, last year U.S. Bank sold the MoneyPass network and the ATM processing piece of our business, but what has been core and what remains is the cash management service business, which includes cash reconciliation, forecasting, provisioning, of course, and management.

We're still the largest and most tenured cash provider in the industry. We have $3 billion — billion with a 'B' — dollars of monthly cash balance, we have a great team, and we are focused on what’s next

Q: So, what isnext and how did you decide where to start?

A: When I took over, I sat down and I asked one simple question: “What do customers want and how quickly can we get it?" Then we developed two new product enhancements that we have built to roll out fairly quickly.

The first is 56-day cash forecasting and replenishment. What that allows is for customers that have lower volume machines that maybe don't need to have a replenishment every 28 days to have a longer cycle. It lowers the cost for replenishment of that machine, but still provides the service that they've come to expect from us.

The second thing is something we’ve heard over and over, "Get me out of the middle with the vendor." And so we gladly stepped in and created armor carrier management where we will handle the full range of services.

We will coordinate the vendor meets, we will do the replenishment and we will take all the different invoicing, make sure it's correct, and then provide them one bill. And what that does, then, is free them up to be able to focus on growing their business and not managing a vendor. And that's been really well received.

Q: Help me understand a little bit more about how armored carrier works now.

A: Previously our clients would have the relationship with the armored carrier. They would contract directly with the carrier, and they would have to manage all the different invoices for all the different sites. They'd have to coordinate and run all that down. The change we are offering is that we will handle that work on their behalf. We will help manage that aspect which then frees them up to focus on other parts of their business.

Q: So you become the all-in-one supplier for them as far as cash, cash forecasting and cash management?

A: Yes, the centralized source to help make things more simplified for our customers.

Q: Will your customer base be both independents and FIs?

A: One of the strategic decisions we've made is to grow our customer base. And so we still provide services to the independent ATM deployers, of course. But there's a lot of need in this space from financial institutions.

Our industry, the overall financial services industry, is really evolving and there's a lot of exciting things going on out there, whether it's cash recyclers, whether it's smart safes. And financial institutions, are asking, "How do I engage my customer base in a more effective manner?"

A lot of that has to do with changes in how we think about branches and how we think about ATMs and the value they bring. And we're here to support all of it.

We're spending the next couple of months thinking about where we go next in that evolution. We absolutely are here to support financial institutions with their cash needs and their armored carrier needs — something we know very well. Evolving into the FI space is just a very natural progression in our minds for where we go next.

Q: You mentioned smart safes. Are you working with retailers as well?

A: We're in the exploratory phase with smart safes. We are talking to retailers about smart safes. We're talking to financial institutions about how we can support that. We're really looking at this industry because it's becoming widely adopted and there's more and more need for support for this sort of product.

Q: Let's talk about reporting … anything new there?

A: We are looking at doing enhancements to our cash ordering and reconciliation software which is known to our customers as Trakker. We are also looking at mobile technology and finding ways to help enhance what we currently have. That's on my dashboard of things, but I don't have any specifics to discuss just yet.

Q: I assume that you've already been talking with some clients about this and I'm just curious to know what kind of reception it's getting.

A: They're really happy we're listening. I think that's the big thing. Fifty-six day replenishment is one of the things they've been asking about for some time. And so it just makes sense. We've had some very fast adopters. We just rolled out our new product enhancements, so we are beginning our marketing campaign to let our clients know about these exciting developments. Reception has been very positive. Clients appreciate the flexibility we're providing them to help with their varied deployment needs.

About Suzanne Cluckey

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Suzanne’s editorial career has spanned three decades and encompassed all B2B and B2C communications formats. Her award-winning work has appeared in trade and consumer media in the United States and internationally.