News

FIs poised to make another self-service leap

October 11, 2005

Financial institutions (FIs) were at the forefront of self-service with the introduction of the ATM in 1967. Now the industry appears poised to take another leap as the line between ATMs and transactional kiosks continues to blur.

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As multifunction technology becomes more reliable and the cost of implementation drops, Glen Fossella, vice president for marketing at Charlotte, N.C.-based transactional kiosk manufacturer Source Technologies said more FIs are considering complementing their teller staff and ATMs with transactional kiosks.

The more predominant use of transactional kiosks among FIs, Fossella said, is in bank lobbies where customers can complete transactions that have traditionally required the assistance of a teller, such as check cashing and bill payment.

"In the competitive banking environment with so much consolidation, FIs are trying to capture more of the wallet share," he said. "They need a more efficient delivery system in the branch so that their staff can spend more time providing other services for customers."

Although on-site transactional kiosks have taken a lead, Drew Soinski, chief marketing officer for Houston-based Cardtronics, the largest independent deployer of ATMs in the world, said it is only a matter of time before FI-owned or -branded transactional kiosks find their way off-premise.

Soinski said Cardtronics brands ATMs for numerous FIs and he expects many of them to be interested in transactional kiosks in the near future.

"I truly believe financial institutions will embrace this at off-premise locations," he said. "We will definitely be developing and offering multifunction ATMs through branding with financial institutions."

While Cardtronics continues to do market research and plan for the development of features such as bill payment and check cashing at the ATM, Soinski said the question is not "if" but "when" these features will be incorporated into bank-branded ATMs.

"The banking world is very competitive and at the end of the day, all financial institutions are trying to find how they can best serve their customers," he said. "If they can do that by offering some of the features you see at transactional kiosks, I am certain that they will be interested in that."

Another company that is optimistic about the future of transactional kiosks is Palm Desert National Bank's Electronic Banking Solutions division, which provides ATM management services such as vault cash replenishment and second-line service.

Don Jarecki, senior vice president of marketing and business development for that division, said PDNB can enable FIs to deploy transactional kiosks by providing for devices that handle check cashing and other advanced functions - the same management services it provides for ATMs.

Fossella said future transactional kiosks will be coupled with traditional ATMs at off-premise locations.

"I think what we will eventually see is an ATM as we know it today plus a continuum of self-service applications nearby," he said. "I think there will always be a need for the monolithic ATM where people can go just to get cash."