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Springfield, MO

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A Conversation With … Jackie Bonner

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Southern Bank this month rolled out live video banking. What is the concept?
An interactive teller machine is a two-way interaction with a bank employee. They can see you and you can see them. This technology allows the customer to do about 95 percent of what they can do in the branch – make deposits, withdrawals. To activate it, you touch the screen and a live person will come up.

How new are ITMs to the industry?
This is the first in our market. Now, interactive teller machines have been in operation several years. Last fall, when we first started looking at the concept, we actually visited a bank in Georgia as part of our due diligence. The process has been about a year. We went in January. We actually deployed our first ITM in mid-September at our Sunshine location as a soft rollout.

We since have deployed two others, one at our Republic Road branch and another in Nixa. Our South National will go live next week.

Is it typically the same staffing as the drive-thru tellers?
The employees for our ITMs are located in our corporate office in Poplar Bluff. This technology allows us to offer extended hours.

Do the units function both as an ATM and ITM?
Yes, the ones that we have are dual purpose. The ATM is available 24 hours a day and the ITM is available extended hours. In our region, that’s 7 a.m.–7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 7 a.m.–3 p.m. Saturday.

Has Southern Bank rolled out ITMs in other markets?
They have one in Poplar Bluff, and we also deployed one in Thayer, Mo., and Jonesboro, Ark. Once the South National ITM is up and running, we’ll have seven that are active.

What’s the longer term vision for the machines?
Our plan is in the spring to deploy more. We’re trying to analyze in each market the acceptability and the needs. The plan is to have more in our market.

Is ITM the next ATM?
I believe so. While we’re the first in our market to deploy them, I know some other banks that are in the process as well. Banking trends are changing in trying to stay up with the demands of convenience, yet maintain that personal touch.

What is the upside to using ITMs?
Keeping that customer interaction and still meeting their needs of convenience. The other thing we see as a value is it allows our branch staff to focus on the customers who come in and give them more one-on-one attention.

And it gives our branch employees more traditional working hours because the central call center handles the ITM transactions after hours. Some may choose to outsource that. We want it to be a Southern Bank employee who’s waiting on our customers.

What other new technology do you see on the horizon?
We used to see crime via checks stolen out of mailboxes or it was all through the check processing system. Now, we’re seeing fraud through debit card transactions and the card processing system. We recently deployed a service free to our customers called Card Valet.

You download a free app and tie your debit card to it and this allows you to monitor your transactions. I can set up parameters on my phone that say I only want to use my card at gas stations within a 50-mile radius of where I’m at. I can set restrictions on the type of transactions, and every time my card is used, I get a text alert. If it’s a transaction I haven’t authorized, I can go in and shut my card off immediately. It puts the fraud protection control in my hands.

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