Informatic unveils new cash cycle management solutions to banking industry

The Informatics Group has been a stalwart in the local and International arena in terms of the innovative software and hardware solutions that they offer. Their contributions to the banking, healthcare, finance and telecom industries have served to uplift these industries and maintain them on par with International standards. In fact the Informatics Group was the first to install 1000 ATMs in Sri Lanka in 2010.

These comments were made by Informatics Group Group Managing Director Hiran Wickramasinghe recently at the launch of the new Cash Cycle Management Solution, from Wincor Nixdorf, held at the Lower Crystal Room of Taj Samudra.

Speaking at the event Wincor Nixdorf’s Regional Vice President and Head of Retail Banking for the Asia Pacific region Ricardos Khoury emphasised that Informatics has been in partnership with Nixdorf for nearly three decades and this partnership has revolutionised the banking industry in Sri Lanka by introducing innovative solutions to face challenges in the industry.

The risk is more when the number of heads handling is high. Handling cash is also an expensive task as well as an essential line of process and the activity itself attracts low transparency. However, if there was to be a system that could bring about elimination of manual cash handling, reduce the volume of circulating cash as well as reduce administration, management overhead for controlling and monitoring the cash logistic chains, the impact and positive effect that it would have on the banking and finance industry simultaneously would be tremendous.

Cash Cycle Management Solution from Wincor Nixdorf is based on CINEO ATMs with intelligent cash cassettes, a system that does indeed fulfil every one of the above criteria and more has now been introduced.

In addition to all the benefits to the banks and their overheads, staff counts etc., the solution will also bring about a greater sense of security as the intelligent closed system will deflect robberies, employee manipulation, avoid inventory discrepancies – within the branch, in storage or transport – and increase transparency due to the real time mapping and cassette monitoring of all stages of transaction.

The solution will also free the bank and its employees from their cash handling duties and thus enable them to utilise their time productively in other banking matters. The reduction in the line of middlemen further simplifies the process.

Wincor Nix-dorf’s Regional Strategic Sales and Marketing Director – Banking Div-ision for Asia Pacific Karsten Khemma elaborated on the Cash Cycle Management Solution product and its benefits.

The research prior to introducing the product involved many types of analysis and enabled the companies to come up with a series of scenarios and models that will take the banking industry to the next unimagined level.

Focusing on some of the key features of the product, Khemma spoke about the optimisation in bank branches, the seamless exchange of cassettes, and the increased level of transparency.

Since this closed cash cycle allows deposited cash to be released for withdrawals following authentication and fitness testing of the currency notes, banks can significantly reduce their workload and expenses. It will therefore entail migration to self service and also maximum usage of equipment .The solution will also have fully functional self service devices, dedicated cash handling tellers, migrating passbooks, statement printing and signage within the bank for customer guidance. The bank currency notes storage concept or end to end cassettes represent a genuine innovation. These intelligent cassettes allow the exchange of cash between individual cash points and thus support the cash cycle within the bank. This ensures quick transactions for the customers and will reduce queues at the bank.

Replenishment and removal processes between systems in the self-service zone, the front office and the back office are thus optimised in a closed cash cycle that is also significantly more efficient. This considerably reduces not just work, but also the risk of robberies and errors, and makes cash handling in bank branches faster, more secure and more cost-effective.

On the whole, the innova­tive currency notes storage concept means cash cycle transparency and maximum audit compliance, and even enables the exchange of cash between bank branches. Precise information on the value of cash in the cassette, the dates of its use and the paths it has taken are available anytime it is needed. This maximises process transparency while minimising manual cash handling.

All these features and product qualities will benefit banks by reducing cash inventory and cash handling, improve the image of the bank and customer satisfaction, enhance employee satisfaction, allow for high transparency, and cross channel utilisation.

Informatics has once again been instrumental in bringing an indispensable value addition to the Sri Lankan economy.