Archive for August 2009

Mobile brain scanner tracks shopper emotions

Monday, August 31st, 2009

The EmSense headband.

It’s not about ATMs, but this was too cool to ignore:

Using a product from the neuroscience firm EmSense, the retail research company TNS Magasin is measuring brain activity of shoppers in real retail environments, with one test completed in Foot Locker.

Before people get too weirded out about privacy invasion, we should point out that this is a test-marketing device, worn by shoppers who know what the scanner is doing:

The EmSense product is a band worn around the shopper’s forehead that scans the pre-frontal cortex.

TNS Magasin is really excited about the prospects:

At last we are able to gain insight into responses to the visual stimuli that the shopper actually looks at, as well as pre-frontal cortex responses. This enables us to gauge the relative roles of emotion and cognition at each and every stage of the shopping journey to understand, literally, what is going on in shoppers’ minds.

That almost certainly overstates the case by quite a lot. Decades of brain research have demonstrated that while we can observe what part of the brain is active during a given activity, it’s much harder to deduce what it’s actually doing, and thus what the activity means. This may give some broad insight into purchasing decisions — like whether a given purchase was a reasoned or emotional decision — but it’s a far, far cry from reading minds.

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Tranax caters to the ‘unbanked’

Monday, August 31st, 2009

An estimated 40 million households in the United States are “cash-preferred”, meaning they prefer to use cash for most of their financial transactions. They may not have a bank account, or the places they shop may not take credit cards, or they may use controlled cash withdrawals as a budget management tool.

It’s a growing market, too, thanks to urbanization and the country’s growing Hispanic population.

Which helps explain why ATM manufacturer Tranax Inc. is focusing a lot of attention on that area.

It’s the nature of self-service, and especially financial self-service,” said Wes Dunn, director of business development for California-based Tranax. “Absolutely, we realize that relevance and the opportunity for our ISOs and for retailers.”

Tranax on Aug. 19 focused on that opportunity in Dallas, where the company held a one-day seminar to drum up awareness among its distributors about self-service money-transfer, bill-payment and check-cashing solutions.

Money transfer is especially big:

One such application is money-transfer, which Tranax works with Nexxo Financial Corp. to provide. Nexxo’s Freddie Seba said the Northern California-based company caters primarily to the burgeoning Hispanic market in the United States, many members of which are unbanked and routinely send cash home to their families in Latin America.

Seba cited statistical evidence that Hispanics in America transfer money an average of 1.5 to 1.8 times per month, with the average transaction totaling $300. Nexxo, Seba says, processes as many as 2,000 transactions on some of its money-transfer kiosks, whose U.S. deployments number around 500, with locations throughout California, Arizona, Texas and Illinois.

Seba said money-transfer remittances are expected to grow to $100 billion through 2015, and Nexxo also offers bill-payment and mobile top-up as ancillary applications.

The company’s kiosks also provide check-cashing and bill-paying services.

It’s not all about speciality kiosks, either; Tranax has designed sidecars for its traditional ATMs so they can offer many of the same functions, as well as dispensing pre-paid cards and the like.

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Verifone launches ATM-kiosk hybrid

Monday, August 31st, 2009

As banking increasingly moves beyond bank branches and into the self-service market, we’re starting to see a convergence between traditional ATMs and specialized kiosks.

The latest:

VeriFone Holdings and PROSA, a Mexico-based electronic switch processor, have introduced an ATM-kiosk hybrid with cash dispensing and deposit functionality, designed for the Latin American market. According to a news release, PROSA plans to roll out the kiosks at retail locations throughout Mexico.

The MX ATM features a number of customizable functionalities, including cash dispensing, balance inquiry, mobile top-up, bill payment, coupon redemption and prepaid card reloading. Miguel Angel Balcazar, PROSA’s executive director of new business, says the kiosks will help retailers reach their customers better and save money.

The MX ATM also can be configured to include barcode and biometric readers as well as coin acceptors.

Look for more of the same in the coming months.

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Stuck in Siberia

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Those fraud-detection programs at banks are supposed to help you out — not strand you in Siberia with no source of funds.

Bank of America on July 28, soon after I arrived in Irkutsk, Russia, for a 2-week trans-Siberian vacation, deactivated my debit card after I withdrew about $400 from an Irkutsk ATM. This was quite unexpected since I had called Bank of America before my vacation to inform them that I would be in Russia.

BofA apparently thought the card was being used fraudulently. The difficulty of communicating from Siberia didn’t help matters. Finally Shannon got through and asked to have her card reactivated. BofA said they couldn’t do that, but they could send her a new card — a solution that made Shannon laugh.

At this point it became glaringly apparent to me that Bank of America does not often do business in Russia. The Russian postal system is famously unreliable, as are courier services there. In fact, many Russian offices have their mail sent to Finland, where it is then privately couriered to Russia. Also, we had not booked many of our hostels and hotels in advance, and explaining the situation to a hostel or hotel over the phone with my 30 words of Russian would have proven frustrating indeed.

There was a logical problem with that solution, too:

Bank of America has used super-science security technology and policy-making to determine the following: not reactivating a card used in Russia prevents fraud, but sending a new debit card to an unverified address is A-OK!

It all worked out in the end, though not without a final twist:

BofA rushed me a new ATM card, but neglected to also rush the accompanying pin number, which arrived five days after the card did. As a result I was unable to activate my card in a BofA ATM, as a sticker on the new card instructed me to. I ended up having to speak with a rep at a local BofA branch, but between the fact that she spoke English combined with my somewhat diminished expectations of BofA, I was able to handle it without further issue.

All’s well that ends well….

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No stimulus funds for NCR plant

Friday, August 21st, 2009

As we noted at the time, ATM manufacturer NCR announced in June that it was moving its headquarters from Ohio to Georgia, costing Ohio about 1,200 jobs and its only Fortune 500 company.

Among the reasons for the move were a $61 million dollar incentive package and the chance to consolidate operations in one place. As part of the deal, NCR agreed to build a new plant in Columbus, Ga.

Soon after the move was announced, Columbus applied for $5.5 million in federal stimulus money for the plant. Ohio officials cried foul, claiming that would be using federal money to send jobs from one state to another, not create new jobs.

Not to worry. At least for now, the request has been denied.

Greater Columbus Chamber of Commerce official Becca Hardin said the Development Authority of Columbus was told late last week that their application for the money was not approved by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

“As originally submitted, they couldn’t support it,” Hardin said. “Our original application was put together so quickly, we were not able to use the federal procurement bidding process.”

Columbus officials say they’re willing to borrow the money if necessary, but they aren’t yet giving up on federal help.

Hardin … is scheduled to lead a group from Columbus to meet with federal Economic Development Administration officials next week.

Stay tuned.

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The art of wrapping

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

If you’ve ever wondered how ATMs (and cars, buses and trains) get dressed up with colorful images and graphics, just read on.

ATM Network recently landed a contract to provide three ATMs to Rochester Community and Technical College (RCTC). As part of the agreement, RCTC wanted the ATMs to wear the school logo and colors.

That meant something called “wrapping”, where the machine is literally wrapped in sheets of heavy-duty glue-backed vinyl. Though the materials vary slightly, it’s the same process used to wrap cars, buses, trains and scoreboards in eye-catching imagery. Here’s how it worked in our case:

Digital mockup of the wrapped ATM

1. Our designer mocked up a digital image of how the machine would look.

The wrap design applied to a full-sized template.

2. Once the design was approved, the designer built a full-sized, full-resolution version using a digital template of the specific ATM model. In this case the model changed between mockup and contract signing, so the design changed slightly, too.

The finished vinyl panels, waiting to be installed.

3. The design file was emailed to a printer that specializes in vinyl graphics, which printed it on thick vinyl with a glue-covered backing. The finished panels were shipped back to ATM Network, ready to be installed.

Putting primer on the edges.

4. The installer first painted the edges of each machine with metal primer, to help the panel glue stick.

Applying the left panel.

Cutting the left panel.

Applying the right panel.

5. After aligning and applying the left panel, he cut the front edge to match the contour of the machine. Then he repeated the process with the right panel. The edges of each panel wrap around the corners of the machine for added purchase.

Applying the back panel.

6. Next the back panel went on.

A blowtorch?!?

7. Sometimes a blowtorch is needed to soften the vinyl so it can be stretched taut or bent around corners.

Applying the top.

8. Next the top went on, covering the seams of the other panels and sealing the whole wrap.

Smoothing the vinyl.

9. The installer used a scraper to smooth each panel flat and tuck it into grooves in the metal.

Applying the front.

10. After carefully laying the ATM on its back, the installer attached the front panel. If necessary he cut holes for things like keyholes, combination locks, levers, etc.

Cutting out the vent holes.

11. Lastly, the installer used a razor knife to cut out all the ventilation holes covered by the vinyl.

Three finished ATMs.

12. Repeat the process twice more, and voila! You have three eye-catching ATMs ready for delivery.

ATM Network can wrap or paint any ATM we sell. We can attach your design or help you design one. Visit our Upgrades page for more details.

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ATMs boost sales for flea market

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

A recent case study by Triton Systems highlights how an ATM can boost sales for local merchants.

The Waldo, Fla., Farmers and Flea Market bills itself as north central Florida’s largest flea market, with 1,000 booths covering 50 acres that attract 35,000 visitors per weekend.

Most of the booths are run by part-time merchants that don’t accept credit cards. Many of them don’t even take checks. So making it easy for customers to have cash on hand is crucial to the market’s success.

Steve Blakewood, the market’s owner, makes that happen with two ATM machines. The machines are kept very busy, typically dispensing $25,000 per weekend.

Blakewood notes that the machines boost sales in several ways.

“It’s a real convenience for our dealers because the customer can get
cash and go back to the booth,” Blakewood said. “A lot of people don’t
intend to spend money but they end up seeing something they want, and
come back two or three times to the machine.”

Merchants use the machine, too, often paying their booth-rental fees in cash. Blakewood sets the transaction fee at a relatively low $2.00, both as a convenience and to encourage repeat use.

It seems to be working.

Blakewood estimates that about 50 percent of the money flows to the flea market dealers and the revenue generated by the transaction fees supplements the flea market income. By way of comparison, experts estimate that about 30 percent of the cash withdrawn in a convenience store ATM is spent in the store.

Blakewoods experience demonstrates the three main ways ATMs help merchants: transaction fees, increased sales and avoiding credit-card processing fees.

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ATM entrepreneur Jonas publishes Holocaust book

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Fields of Ukraine

Sam Jonas is well-known in the ATM industry, having built independent ATM operator Cash Resources into a $25 million business before selling it to eFunds (now part of Fidelity Information Services) in 2002.

But his latest venture has nothing to do with financial services.

Jonas says he’s taking a break from the financial services business to focus on publishing a work that he holds close to his heart.

Josef Laufer

The work in question is called “The Fields of Ukraine.” It’s a biography of Yosef Laufer, a Holocaust survivor from Zurawno, Ukraine. Jonas’ grandmother, Lottie Spinner Jonas, grew up in Zurawno but left the village before World War II. Jonas and his brother, Ted, stumbled across Laufer’s story while visiting Zurawno for genealogical research.

Laufer, a teenager when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, narrowly escaped deporation to a death camp. He and his father spent the next three years hiding in the fields and forests around their village.

Jonas didn’t write the book. A year after their visit to Zurawno, a cousin found a biography of Laufer written by another Holocaust survivor, Haim Tal. Problem was, it was available only in Hebrew. It took them three years to find Laufer and get Tal’s permission to translate the book into English. They also conducted some additional interviews of Zurawno residents and incorporated them into the English version.

The book has already had an impact on at least some readers. Here’s what happened to one of them, Ralph Seliger:

To my shock, my long deceased maternal grandparents (victims of the Holocaust), suddenly appeared in the pages of a book I was reading….

My grandparents hid together from Jew-hunting “actions” for several months in the Stryj ghetto – along with Yosef Laufer, his father, and another young man. This, in part, is how Laufer describes their existence and my grandmother’s role in keeping them alive:

At night we would collect scraps of food left by those who had been rounded up. We also collected items of clothing and other useful things which we bartered for wheat or cereal. We would crush the grain by using a special kind of grater and in this way we were able to produce flour and then bake something that was edible.

Mrs. Reiss was a noble but also a very pedantic woman. She prepared food for all of us from the bits we could get hold of. She washed our clothes and tried to keep the house clean.

Laufer recounts my grandparents being captured by Ukrainian guards while escaping the Stryj ghetto.

The book is available online at www.fieldsofukraine.com.

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A new way to buy insurance

Monday, August 17th, 2009

If Polaris Software Lab has its way, ATMs will soon be able to sell insurance as well as dispense dollars.

The Indian company is developing software that lets customers buy insurance, renew policies or adjust coverage through an ATM.

For instance, if a customer is planning to buy a travel policy, he can walk in to his nearest ATM and key in the policy requirements by using his debit or credit card. An electronic message is sent to the insurance policy system, which in turn will send the confirmation electronic message to the ATM. Once the confirmation is received, the ATM will provide a receipt that will contain details like name of the customer, country to which he/she is travelling, policy start date, end date and policy value and the type of coverage.

If the customer extends his stay abroad, he can top-up the policy by accessing one of the ATMs abroad. Similarly, an insured can renew his policy.

Polaris is pitching this as a convenience for customers and a money-saver for insurers. The idea is only in the concept stage, so don’t look for it on your block any time soon. And it sounds like it would roll out in Asia and Europe before it reached the United States. But it’s a sign of things to come.

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Pay your taxes at an ATM?

Friday, August 14th, 2009

That’s the goal of a state-owned bank in Mumbai, India:

The proposed product, to be called as ‘E-payment through ATM’ will enable the taxpayers to pay tax at anytime from anywhere. One can pay taxes like income, fringe benefit, securities transaction as well as gift taxes through the facility, which is likely to be launched within a period of 10 days from now. The bank will earn 11 paise per tax payment through the upcoming facility.

Just another glimpse of what the future of ATMs will look like.

Update: Vietnam is experimenting with this idea, too.

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