Utilizing automation in a modern teller strategy optimizes financial institution effectiveness in meeting customer needs, reducing waste caused by inefficiencies of manual processes, and significantly decreasing fraud loss.
Automation eliminates hand-written documents, such as cash-ins, cash-outs, and general ledger tickets with the creation of virtual tickets. It dispositions virtual tickets at the point of presentment as part of accepting the transaction from the customer. Virtual tickets help financial institutions reduce network utilization and paper inventory by up to 40 percent and lower archival costs by 10 percent. With proper authentication methods, all counter tickets are eliminated.
Technology simplifies complex transactions, like Savings Bond Redemption, through automation. Bonds are scanned once, capturing details of each bond, and looking up current and interest values. It places a virtual endorsement with all banker and financial institution required information on the front of each item, eliminating the need to physically stamp and rescan. This flow allows faster processing, simplified item handling, and the ability to pass images directly to the Fed for faster collection on these items.
Additionally, with 100 percent capture, tellers and back-office operators have an automated approach to exception handling on items such as foreign checks. When presented with items that cannot be processed electronically, the teller scans and sends the physical paper items to the back office. An operator rescans the items in the back office for reconciliation with the teller’s original scan. This approach allows managers to track the status of special-handling items from presentment through posting. If a teller in the branch captured these items during the day, the back office is notified and expects to receive them. This process automates exception handling and ensures accurate and timely processing.
Automation mitigates fraud with real-time detection, interpreting results, and returning transaction decisions, eliminating the need for tellers to be trained fraud analysts. The system places necessary holds or directs the teller to accept the transaction or perform appropriate teller or supervisor overrides. Automation routes fraud alerts directly to the back office for adjudication by trained fraud analysts.
For more information, download the Teller Strategy in Today's World interview document.