Human Experience Elevated

The last two years of labor challenges, financial disruptions, and permanent changes to work and lifestyle has inspired the banking industry’s investment in solutions that will help ease cash flow disruptions. Daniel Litwin and Michael Graham, VP of Retail Solutions & Strategy for Hyosung, discuss how ATMs are meeting the needs of our changing banking landscape.

The pandemic has sped up the banking changes that have ushered in the ATM over 50 years. But can the industry adapt to the closing of physical touch points, and will that shift from personal service lead to more innovation?

"In general, banking has been the primary market and innovation driver for ATM solutions. But recent trends that have both dampened the banking market and shifted in-person service at large are giving way to new retail ATM solutions to meet new needs," says Graham. 

With banking apps from Apple, Venmo and others growing in numbers, can the retail ATM improve and change, so it isn't left behind? And is it still a reliable and quality option for consumers?

Join Daniel and Michael as they discuss how Hyosung is working to change the ATM experience.

What will the future of retail look like in an increasingly cashless and digital society?

On the podcast episode of “Inspired Retail,” host Tyler Kern talked with Michael Graham, the vice president of Banking Solutions and Strategy for Hyosung America. The two chatted about how the shift from cash to cashless is impacting the future of retail. Hyosung America is an ATM servicing company that is a growing leader in the ATM industry, and naturally, the company is a front seat witness to how these changes are happening and what to expect next.

Kern said that the use of cash has dropped tremendously due to the transition to digital for many consumers. And this fact can be proven to be exceptionally glaring on any given day by simply questioning the amount of legal tender they both have in their wallets, stated Graham.

“There’s probably not a ton between the two of us, and I think that just kind of represents a lot of what's happened over the last decade,” said Graham. “Obviously this trend towards digital … we continue to see this downward traffic trend from a physical perspective.”

With less cash being circulated comes concerns about the direction this could all be headed. This concern was further extrapolated at the height of the COVID-19 lockdowns. With more people at home than before, online shopping saw an exponential increase.

But Graham added that online shopping and quick delivery options benefit consumers in a way that has created a new cultural phenomenon. This along with the integration of digital payment options in retail stores creates less use for cash. As a result, it’s reduced cash circulation. On the contrary, cash remains a fundamental aspect of society that will retain a base of preferred uses and users.

“People are returning to physical brick and mortar … but cash is still needed and we still see this need for cash,” he said.

And even legislators agree. To ensure cash is being used and accepted in retail Congress passed the Payment Choice Act, making sure that all retailers accept cash in some way given the increasingly common ‘card only' trend.

Graham said that this will be of benefit to consumers who do not have banking. He added that a segment of the consumer population has been ignored by banking institutions who favor mobile banking. These consumers, he said, are “unbanked and underbanked,” and how digital banking does more harm than good for these groups despite them helping the flow of cash usage.

Cash being used in retail does come at a cost for the retailer because staff is needed to handle, manage, and secure all cash coming in and out. It also helps retailers focus on other priorities in growing the efficiency of their business, stated Graham.

Nonetheless, Graham also stated that transactions under $50 and certain services such as landscaping have always relied on a cash payment. Those cash-preferred instances have more permanence.

At Hyosung, Graham cited that the company particularly focuses assisting retailers with cash solutions at their locations, and also coming to a full understanding of their specific needs for improvement. He said that this varies in small businesses and big retailers.

“As we’ve developed solutions, they’re really the result of customers telling us, ‘This is what we're looking for,’ and Hyosung has really prided itself in being around customizing what the customer is really asking for,” said Graham.

Hyosung has a dedicated network specifically to work with retailers, and offering the best solutions to them.

ATMs have long been a part of the banking processing, but the pandemic accelerated the use of self-service tools in banking was. Bill Budde, Vice President of Banking Strategy and Solutions for Hyosung, spoke with Inspired Banking host Tyler Kern about the evolution of banking self-service tools and which technology benefits end-user experience and bank efficiency.

The prevalence of deposit automation opened the door to drive straightforward transactions to automation instead and bypass administrative tasks employees would otherwise need to complete. Minimization of training, documentation, managing, and auditing of processes created efficiencies and allowed employees to tend to customer needs. “You don’t have to spend so much time reconciling the counting and on purely operational nonvalue tasks. You can really refocus that time on how to relationships, how to ensure that the customers are getting what they need and the best service they can get,” Budde stated.

Automated processes depleted the need for space in bank branches, allowing them to shrink. Banks can then target geographic areas with smaller spaces to reach new populations. These spaces can focus more on consultative and customer-oriented services. If the small branches cannot accommodate all services, the main branch would fulfill these.

Budde explained the importance of 24-hour bank access: “Access is a form of customer expectation at this point because pretty much every vertical was forced to have some kind of access that didn’t require in-person interaction.”

Some services that may soon be available in this 24-hour access include core integration, which allows high-level banking processes such as paying loans to occur through ATMs. Additionally, video tellers may verify IDs for large ATM transactions while the rest of the process is automated so tellers can support 10 to 15 ATMs at once.

For more information on Hyosung and to contact Budde, visit hyosungamericas.com.

Cash recycling has been proving itself to be a worthwhile upgrade to ATMs across the globe, creating domino effects from cost savings to safer cash to more efficient banking services for the end-user.

Here to give insights on this episode of Inspired Banking, a Hyosung podcast, is Bill Budde, Vice President of Product Marketing at Hyosung. He talked to Host Daniel Litwin about how to really connect the dots between the economy today, how cash is being used, and why recycling ATMs are a worthwhile investment.

Budde previously worked at Chase on their ATM technology. This early work included transaction and deposit automation technology, where he rolled it out across the entire footprint of Chase’s branch network. He moved into incorporating cash recycling into these machines.

With this knowledge, Budde understands how cash moves into today’s society. With debit cards, peer-to-peer payments, and other technologies leading the way on how people spend money, it’s essential to understand how end-users use cash in today’s larger ecosystem.

“Cash is still a predominantly preferred method of payment for in-person transactions,” Budde said. “What we’ve seen over the last 18 months or so is a lot of that in-person interaction, for retail for purchasing in general, kind of disappeared for a while.”

While transactions moved to digital methods during the pandemic, cash remained king. Part of this is that there is still a large population that doesn’t use banks or underutilizes them, according to Budde, and this makes cash the most accessible mechanism to pay.

Cash recycling has been proving itself to be a worthwhile upgrade to ATMs across the globe, creating domino effects from cost savings to safer cash to more efficient banking services for the end-user.

Here to give insights on this episode of Inspired Banking, a Hyosung podcast, is Bill Budde, Vice President of Product Marketing at Hyosung. He talked to Host Daniel Litwin about how to really connect the dots between the economy today, how cash is being used, and why recycling ATMs are a worthwhile investment.

Budde previously worked at Chase on their ATM technology. This early work included transaction and deposit automation technology, where he rolled it out across the entire footprint of Chase’s branch network. He moved into incorporating cash recycling into these machines.

With this knowledge, Budde understands how cash moves into today’s society. With debit cards, peer-to-peer payments, and other technologies leading the way on how people spend money, it’s essential to understand how end-users use cash in today’s larger ecosystem.

“Cash is still a predominantly preferred method of payment for in-person transactions,” Budde said. “What we’ve seen over the last 18 months or so is a lot of that in-person interaction, for retail for purchasing in general, kind of disappeared for a while.”

While transactions moved to digital methods during the pandemic, cash remained king. Part of this is that there is still a large population that doesn’t use banks or underutilizes them, according to Budde, and this makes cash the most accessible mechanism to pay.

On today's episode of the podcast, we're digging into the incoming compliance standards updates for ATMs, coming out of the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council. Banking professionals and ATM operators may or may not be familiar with PCI TR-31 which, come the deadline of December 31, 2024, will require an upgrade to all ATM encrypting pin pad hardware.

Retailers are advised not to delay compliance as there could be consequences for waiting too long. They emphasize the importance of updating both hardware and software components of ATMs. Machines older than May 2014 might need replacements, especially those operating on the WinCE 5.0 platform. Retailers are encouraged to start preparations early to avoid potential backlogs and challenges.

The PCI Security Standards Council has new standards for ATM PIN pads and data encryption. The mandates have two key deadlines:

• By December 31, 2024: All terminals capable of being upgraded to the latest version of encrypting pin pad (EPP) must be upgraded. Non-upgradable terminals must be replaced.

• On January 1, 2025: Operational ATMs are required to have current firmware and software that uses the TR31 Phase 3 key blocks. This is aimed at providing greater security for PINs and data transferred through the ATM and onto payment network infrastructure.

Machines that do not comply with these mandates after the deadlines will essentially become non-operational as they will not be supported by host processors.