Article

Wincor Nixdorf's Uwe Krause defends EPC call for standard-sized cash cassettes across Europe

The company is offering to share its technology to help develop a standard cassette.   

October 4, 2011

By Uwe Krause, director of global marketing, Wincor Nixdorf International

Editor's note: The following commentary has been edited for brevity and clarity.

The debate surrounding standard-sized cassettes is based on the idea that the cash cycle is a special kind of supply chain in which a product, in this case cash, is made available at the right time, in the right amount, using a minimum number of resources, and then returned to the cash cycle in the same way.

If we view the subject from this angle, we can utilize the same benefit arguments that were used when introducing the standard container and the Euro-pallet. The standardization and regulation of cash cassettes indeed lead to significant cost reductions, especially in cash handling. Given that the volume of cash in circulation is on the increase worldwide, and the cost of cash handling for the parties involved is rising too, the introduction of standardized cassettes would generate huge cost savings and keep cash handling costs down in the long term.

Customers can benefit from the economies of scale promised by mass production of cassettes, and the reduction of necessary replacement cassettes as a result of pooling. Of course, cash-in-transit costs, too, will be reduced owing to standardization of the infrastructure, e. g. armored cars, racks, etc. And we must not forget reduction in the administration and maintenance of the cassettes.

The European ATMs 2011 conference in London showed that we are on the right track. There, representatives of CIT companies and banks voiced agreement that a standardized note storage system would considerably simplify processes across the cash supply chain.

And our customer projects – in which we analyze cash processes and put a value on the benefit for financial institutions and retailers of implementing cash cycle management solutions – are delivering amazing results. We are able to achieve cost reductions of more than 20 percent in cash handling. Also, we are integrating the standard cassette in cash center solutions.

Therefore, Wincor Nixdorf collaborated with Giesecke & Devrient to develop a processing system that automatically replenishes note storage units in the cash center. Wincor Nixdorf is willing to share its expertise and provide support in order to promote an ATM cassette standard for the benefit of our industry as a whole.

The standard cassette will make handling, transport and stocking much easier for CIT companies, who now have to handle all kinds of different cassettes. A single type of cassette would also enable more efficient transportation in CiT trucks.

Above and beyond this, if the retail and banking cash cycles are combined, replenishment and removal processes can be substantially optimized, thus reducing the number of journeys made from cash centers to customers. Like any change, the implementation of a new standard represents an opportunity. Thus, CIT companies will be able to develop new business models and service offerings, such as the cassette pooling already mentioned.

Standardization can help to reach a higher level of security by reducing the incidence of errors. Additional benefits stem from the security features of the standard cassette.

For example, our CINEO cassettes are equipped with a chip that provides a constant flow of inventory data and other cash management data. This allows real-time monitoring of cash movements along the entire supply chain. The CINEO cassettes also feature an electronic protection facility and flexible configuration of cassette modes. This completely rules out the possibility of tampering occurring between cash points because cassettes removed from the protected system cannot be accessed without authorization.

Another feature we integrated is the banknote staining function, which includes a timer option for setting the latest possible time by which the cassette must be docked to a secure system. If the deadline is exceeded, banknote staining is triggered automatically.

European CIT providers fall victim to 1,300 attempted robberies every year. Approximately one-third of these attacks occur while an ATM is being replenished, but more than half target the CIT vehicles themselves. An intelligent banknote storage system with inking technology makes cash transport and storage more secure and transparent. That should be a definite claim of the standard cassette.

The EPC is explicitly talking about the standardization of future product lines and not about the redesign of current models. In the past, some manufacturers redesigned models to include specific recycling technology in order to gain market entry. So, modification was possible. In any case, financial institutions have to replace self-service systems after a lifecycle of roughly eight years. So it will be a long-term process and not a cloak-and-dagger operation.

In our view, if we don't start promoting the standard cassette now, it will take more than 10 to 20 years before we can benefit from all the advantages it has to offer.