Went to the mall today and found out that First National Bank at the mall near my home has installed self-service stations which take the ATM to a whole new level. In the past, if you wanted to deposit bank notes into a First National Bank client account, you had to go see a teller to do the deposit.
(above: banking official shows customer how to use new service)
The new self-service allows you to deposit bank notes into the recipient's account directly, and the money is available to the recipent instantly. And you don't have to be an FN account holder or to even use your ATM card to do it. So essentially, I can walk to an ATM, launch the transaction, input the recipent banking details, put cash in, get receipt and that's it.
The big benefit of this service is that, if you don't have Internet access to do an instant transfer, and you're not registered for cellphone banking, you can still deposit money into a stranded friend or family member's account any time of the day or night, and they will be able to get the money instantly. Not sure how long they've had this service, but it is very useful for the majority of South Africans who don't have Internet access, and deal mostly on a cash basis.
Anyhoo, had a good client meeting this morning. We went through the newsletter I'm developing for them and she clarified some issues and i'm thinking that the next issue will be much better, more focussed on what she needs to communicate. She also has some design ideas that's going to give the newsletter a vibrant feel. Client used to be my editor about 15 years ago when I was a kidlet and getting into the business, so I trust her judgement and usually find her suggestions enhance my work. So the conversation was much more collaborative rather than client demanding something, which is nice.
3 comments:
That deposity thingy sounds way cool! The thing I love most about the UK is self service tills in the supermarkets, I love swiping my own groceries. But they are surprisingly backwards when it comes to ATMs, it is hard to find one to deposit money even into your own account!
WOW! That is VERY impressive! I had no idea they were doing this!
Does lessen the need for actual branches though which is a slight concern for tellers and branch staff!
@laura - you're very right. the branch where they have these self-service stations has been scaled down considerably. One customer complained that the branch looked like "mukhukhu", one of the small shanty houses in really poor areas. They only had 3 teller stations in this branch, and only 2 were people manning them. And during a holiday weekend nogal. Had a couple of staff members going through the queues encouraging customers to use the self-service machines; I guess they were trying to wean us off the human staff:-)
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