As someone who spends the majority of his time immersed in cash automation technology, I figured our customers appreciate good, honest research and opinion. As an independent company, QDS has access to a wide range of cash recyclers from all over the world and we have supported many of the current brands today from a service perspective. Full Disclosure: we ARE a Nautilus Hyosung dealer.
Monisafe 400A - Pros
As a dealer for this product and a longstanding ATM dealer, Nautilus has positioned themselves as a true innovator in the market. They have a clear strategy around branch transformation, and continue to lead thoughts on the subject based on their experience with 2 of the top 5 banks in the US market today. Nautilus has a high quality product and manufacturing process. We have found their ATMs break down much less often than those of the more familiar brands like NCR and Diebold.
First things first, from a design perspective the unit has an attractive design and will fit under most teller counters with ease. We find it to be about 2" or so shorter than most teller cash recyclers, making installations a little bit simpler. It has a great 7" screen that shows totals and can serve several other functions, including some maintenance items. The Monisafe 400A also has a unique currency pocket that stays closed most of the time unless you are depositing funds. Once you place the notes inside the pocket, the "lid" closes again preventing spills and other things from jumping in the area where cash is processing, eliminating some potential risks for damage. This door also helps keep the unit quiet and smooth as its processing cash.
The Monisafe 400A has several unique features. The unit is cassette based, which allows for larger capacity and eliminates "curl" that can occur from RSM(roll storage module) based technologies. They have 3 large cassettes that average 2200-2500 notes each, and 4 smaller cassettes averaging around 700 notes each. The unique feature comes in that one of the large cassettes is an overflow/recycle cassette. This allows notes to go into this cassette if a denominational cassette is full, but later notes can be moved back from the overflow cassette to a denominational cassette, something no one else on the market can do. Another way to use this feature is an Internal Self Audit. Every other cash recycler you have to physically empty the machine either by removing the cassettes or releasing funds from the RSMs 100 notes at a time until the machine is empty and an audit can be performed. This feature allows you to audit the machine, 1 cassette at a time using the overflow cassette. The machine runs all of the notes back through the bill scanner and shows the expected value and the actual counted value. This allows you to audit the entire machine without having to open the safe.
Monisafe 400A - Cons
One of the Achilles heels of this unit is the relatively small 200 note escrow. The machine seems slow because notes on deposit have to run into the escrow and then get deposited from the escrow down into the bottom cassettes, creating a two-step process. On larger deposits, you have to do this multiple times, which can slow down the overall transaction. So I would rate the deposit speed of this unit towards the bottom.
Secondly, while the overflow cassette is a great feature, you are having to give up 1 large cassette for that. In my opinion it would be great if you could use one of the smaller 700 note cassettes as overflow and pick up another large cassette for true recycling(thus limiting the chances of needing the overflow).
Finally, the machine will sometimes stop processing a deposit or cash load when it hits a reject note, so it can kick that note back to the user. This can dramatically slow down a cash in process as well with rejected notes. While the 400A rejects very few notes, and in my opinion handles all types of currency better than most recyclers, it can be frustrating to handle the rejects.
If you are convinced cassette based technology in recyclers is the way to go, the Monisafe 400A is a strong contender, and has some great unique features that can be hugely valuable in the right situation. Nautilus has proven again and again they build a great product, so we are excited here at QDS to see how this product hits the market in 2015. Hopefully you found this review helpful, if you are looking to compare it to another recycler, check out our comparison to the Arca CM-18.