The Easiest and Most Effective Branch Automation Ecosystem

The most effective solution is usually the easiest

FIs are committed. They are committed to:

• Seamless, optimum customer experiences across their Branch Automation Ecosystems regardless of their customers opting for Self-Service or teller channels.

• Automating while optimising sales at each touchpoint with their customers.

• Simplifying without compromising across their branch network - ensuring individual branch requirements are met in full.

• Delivering an effective Branch Automation Ecosystem.

In a sentence? A Branch Automation Ecosystem solution that runs Hardware Agnostic Software allows FI’s to address each branch's hardware requirements while maintaining the same customer experience and only having one central application to manage their full ecosystem.

Issues Faced by FIs

FIs (rightfully) rely on industry experts, vendors, and partners to advise on the best possible route to designing a Branch Automation Ecosystem for their unique requirements. In a lot of cases, FI’s are unaware that other solutions exist outside of hardware vendors — and options provided by their Core Banking System. This can lead to some of the issues below being faced by the Fi’s:

• Hardware providers selling cookie-cutter solutions (one solution for all branch types).

• Hardware providers selling multiple solutions to cater for each branch type that is not solutions integrated.

• Hardware providers not presenting and exploring with the FI, the value of a Mix & Match machine approach that uses one single Hardware Agnostic Software solution across all machines.

• Presenting ITM software provided by legacy ATM Hardware providers, (ATM ++ (See Glossary) as viable solutions without acknowledging that these systems were not purpose-built for the lobby, but rather lobby functionality was added to existing ATM software.

Branch Automation Ecosystems should work as the branch does, for example balancing at the End-of-Day, CTR should be triggered when a customer transacts above a certain level — whether within the branch or the lobby — or a combination of both.

The Vision

A well-made Branch Automation Ecosystem that uses a Mix-and-Match Approach to ensure the best possible short and long-term solution for each Financial Institution (FI).

There are different types of automated solutions (ATM to ASK) to weave into your Branch Automation Ecosystem. This is easily achieved by selecting an agnostic software solution and mixing-and-matching the hardware that makes sense for each requirement, regardless of the manufacturer.

Any machine can host any software because it is the installed software that will determine the purpose of a machine; ATM, ITM, ASK, VTM.

To give a concrete example about looking beyond a cookie-cutter solution, and how looking at a Mix-and-Match Solution can be of benefit, we will reuse the example from the What are the Options for Your Branch Automation Ecosystem? document, in this example, the FI had chosen the ITM solution for their Branch Automation Ecosystem.

As in the previous document, our example FI has 3 different branch types:

• Branch A: is in a community with many small businesses locally

• Branch B: is located within or beside a shopping mall

• Branch C: is in a suburban location

Branch A - may be best served by only automating cash deposits for commercial clients.

Branch B - All transactions should be automated as much as possible and customer experience is the most important factor.

Branch C - Transactions in the lobby should be automated as much as possible with over-the-shoulder assistance when required, and equally transactions in the drive-through should also be available with remote support when required.

Therefore the best configuration of the Branch Automation Ecosystem could be as follows:

• Branch A: a High Capacity Cash Deposit Machine for commercial clients

• Branch B: High-End Kiosk with Full Assisted Self-Service Software

• Branch C: Drive-through Machines outside the branch as well as High-End Kiosks inside the lobby providing Full Service with a particular emphasis on over-the-shoulder assistance

Three different branches and three different machine types that are best suited to provide the optimum customer experience. The most important factor is that the customer experience should be the same and to provide that the software should be the same.

Mix-&-Matching is done to ensure the branch is delivering a unique set of experiences across several machines, pending the requirements of a particular branch.

Having a High Capacity Cash Deposit Machine that is dedicated to commercial clients; a Low Capacity Machine in locations that have low volumes. The mixing of machine types in your branch network may allow for more specialisation and efficiency of tasks and lesser costs overall.

Not all transactions should be performed on these machines, or in every machine, consider onboarding, or instant issue card machines…. You could have machines dedicated to those actions, and not have to install that functionality on every machine.

Benefits

The benefits of using a purpose-built system for the branch in your lobby include inbuilt branch-specific functionality such as balancing at End-of-Day, CTR reports when cumulative transactions from any channel go over 10K, Approval mechanisms, and roles of branch staff. Additional functionality — higher limits (due to approval mechanism) more client-focused — bringing information to the branch staff at the point of contact with the customer. Automation with the human (physical) touch — not video, allowing FI’s to maintain those sales and referrals that occur from Daily Transactions currently happening within the branch.

The Mix-and-Match of hardware allows for the reuse of existing hardware as well as ensuring that only locations that maximise the return on the most expensive hardware solutions have those solutions installed and bringing value.

The Solution

Hardware Agnostic, Mix-and-Match Solutions that offer a well-made, long-term Branch Automation Ecosystem that serves particular requirements for each Branch across your Branch Network.

Antuar has brought the Teller application to the lobby, with balancing at End of Day, branch staff alerted when CTR required, authorisation limits based on roles, etc., all built-in as standard. The Antuar solution works on different machine types, with the hardware specifications of the machine defining what transactions are available, the same software will run on many different types of machines.