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Wincor Nixdorf and IBM to target Canada's retail banks

December 7, 2010

Wincor Nixdorf AG and IBM Corp. have announced that they will establish a joint competency center in Toronto to serve Canada's retail banks, which are the world's strongest financially.

The competency center will develop software solutions for Canadian banks. This will include Wincor Nixdorf's Cash Cycle Management solutions, which are designed to reduce the expense associated with cash handling.

Paderborn, Germany-based Wincor Nixdorf demonstrated its cash handling system (CINEO C6030 Automated Teller Safe and CINEO ATM) at BAI Retail Delivery last October in Las Vegas.

The machines reduce the need for armored car services to deposit and pick up cash, and they eliminate the need for bank tellers to count and recount cash. The CINEO line, an acronym for Cash Intelligent NEO or New, uses interchangeable banknote-holding cassettes that can store up to 2,200 banknotes. If one of the ATM cassettes runs out of banknotes, bank employees replace it with a cassette from the automated teller safe.

Canada's banks are open to the idea of more efficient cash handling because many of them employ automated teller safes, said Wincor Nixdorf officials.

"We want to introduce the banks to the next level of sophisticated cash management," said Juergen Kisters, who on January 1 will become general manager of Wincor Nixdorf Canada. Kisters will work with Sean McCarthy, self-service executive for IBM Canada.

Wincor Nixdorf and IBM, which is based in Armonk, N.Y., have worked together for over 11 years. The two men will manage separate teams, but they will collaborate on software development. IBM will continue to provide Wincor Nixdorf hardware for retail banking and self-service environments, the branch business and cash management.

"Our joint portfolio will cover every aspect of IT needed for retail banking, enhancing our Canadian leadership position for self-service," Wincor Nixdorf officials said. Wincor Nixdorf is involved in discussions with several unnamed banks to persuade them to test CINEO's cash recycling system, Kisters said. 

Gil Luria, senior vice president of equity research at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, said this is a major development for Wincor Nixdorf.

"This represents nice progress for Wincor on two fronts—their move into North America and their cash management initiative. Both of these are important for Wincor's ability to grow over the next few years," Luria said.

Canada has 738 banks, and they are financially the strongest in the world. 

"Lending institutions in the U.S. have received direct-government capital injections totaling almost $250 billion. The government of the United Kingdom has put more than $125 billion into its banks. The Netherlands: almost $53 billion. France $26 billion. Ireland $29 billion. Germany has set aside $107 billion," Nancy Hughes Anthony, president and CEO of the Canadian Bankers Association, said in a speech in April.

"How many Canadian banks have collapsed? Zero," Hughes Anthony said. "And the total amount of taxpayer dollars used to bailout Canadian banks? Zero. Both Moody's and the World Economic Forum have named Canada's banks as the strongest and most financially secure in the world. For two years now."

There were 17,255 bank-owned ATMs in Canada as of Oct. 31, 2009, according the Canadian Bankers Association, which is based in Toronto. There were a total of 58,200 ATMs nationwide. A 2010 technology survey by the Canadian Bankers Association found that ATMs are the primary means of banking for 23 percent of Canadians.

Last year, Canada's banks spent $5.8 billion on technology, said Andrew Addison, a spokesperson for the Canadian Bankers Association.