ABA Banking Journal 5/08 - (Page 54) SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION ABA Banking Journal’s White Paper for May 2008: Retail Banking EXECUTIVE SUMMARY For the full article go to http://www.ababj.com 5 Emerging Teller Trends By John Meyer Vice President, Integrated Harland Financial Solutions E-mail: John.meyer@harlandfs.com • 800-989-9009 x6625 www.harlandfinancialsolutions.com T he act of putting pen to paper encourages pause for thought, this in turn makes us think more deeply about life, which helps us regain our equilibrium. — Norbet Platt, President of Montblanc While writing with pen and paper is an art form that gives pause to great minds, does it give pause to your customer service and cause your customers to ponder why they should continue banking with your institution? This paper looks at five key trends emerging in the automated teller world that should give pause for thought to any institution still using manual pen and paper procedures at the teller window or Sharp Teller Machine solutions. Customer Satisfaction With over ten financial relationships per household in the United States today, there is no question that consumers have choices regarding where to bank, insure, and invest. If you ask bankers how they compete in this environment, almost all will utter the word “convenience.” So how does teller automation add to customer convenience? Convenience starts with the teller efficiently managing the customer line so that no one waits excessively. The first element in convenience is eliminating the need to leave the customer while performing a transaction. In manual or Sharp Machine environments, tellers leave customers to check balances, price bonds, type up cashier’s checks, seek supervisor approvals, and retrieve signature cards. The second element of convenience is recognizing valuable customers and applying consistent policies for holds, fees, and product inquiries. Reduced Fraud and Other Losses Fraud losses hurt the bottom line. Automated teller software reduces fraud by retrieving host alerts, balances, signatures, digitized photos and by placing holds, stops, and memo-posts to an account. Automated teller software cuts down on internal fraud by looking for suspicious teller activity. It also eliminates many over and short losses, time intensive analysis transactions, and balancing errors. BSA Compliance BSA. AML. OFAC. USA PATRIOT Act. FFIEC. These acronyms drive fear and dread into many compliance officers’ hearts as they try to understand how they will meet the monitoring and reporting requirements for the next exam. Teller automation helps these compliance officers by enabling the proper data collection at the time of the transaction for monitoring and reporting of CTRs, SARs, and Monetary Instrument Logs. Better Team Management Happy and efficient tellers make happy customers. With nearly 40 percent turnover in these positions annually, it has traditionally been difficult to keep these valuable team members trained and rewarded for better retention. Teller automation solutions that guide a user to the next step in a transaction can reduce training time 80 percent. Automation also allows for monitoring cash on-hand so that tellers can conduct buys and sells at the right time and also helps management understand peak traffic times to schedule the right amount of help in the branches. Future Flexibility Automated teller systems integrate with the other automation elements of cash dispensers, recyclers, and counters by seamlessly integrating these technologies into the workflow of the teller. As businesses start capturing their own work, the cost justification of moving capture to the teller window makes a lot of sense. Almost 80 percent of transactions at the teller window today are less than ten items which makes these ideal candidates for image capture at the point of presentment. An automated teller solution can integrate with these smaller scanners and eliminate all paper. The reasons for automating the teller line extend to all facets of banking, including the customer, fraud, compliance, teller performance, and the future of technology. Non-automated banks are wise to spend the time and energy it takes to best understand how investing in this critical technology can improve their business performance and customer satisfaction. 54 MAY 2008/ABA BANKING JOURNAL Subscribe at www.ababj.com http://www.ababj.com http://www.harlandfinancialsolutions.com http://www.ababj.com
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