We work with a variety of financial institutions to identify ways to gain efficiency through automation in the retail branch setting. After over 30 plus years of consultation, we’ve often heard from our customers and industry peers alike that the currency management aspects of retail branch banking are about ‘everyone (i.e. Banks and Credit Unions) managing the same foundational currency processes differently’.
Strap Integrity and Mixed Notes
One of the most influential and useful solutions for customers is the Currency Discriminator. Retail branches throughout our marketplace are faced with 2 primary issues with respect to the physical ‘state’ of currency they deal with. One is a) verifying that funds contain “strap integrity” or that all 100 notes in the strap are the correct denomination and b) the ability to rapidly process mixed notes coming in from depositors and verifying a count by denomination to provide better audit control for internal balancing procedures. If you take into consideration that 30+% of commercial deposits presented across the teller line or in night drop bags are wrong, a discriminator can be a valuable tool for tellers to verify notes, by denomination and sort them into meaningful and transferable straps quickly and efficiently.
Resolving Frustration and Disconnection
At the Teller Window and in the Cash Counting room, where these impacts are regularly most felt, Currency Discriminators as a solution resolve the frustration and disconnect between inbound currency from these and other sources and the discipline and process most teller we talk with require: faced and sorted notes all oriented the proper way and validated for accuracy and integrity. Discriminators offer these feature advantages of sorting, facing, separating single and mixed denominations, automatically detecting and separating suspect notes as well as batching for the strap and depositing purposes. Currency Discriminators range from a unit price perspective approximately $2,000.00 – mid $3,000.00 range. Also, all units are compatible with an optional receipt printer which retails for approximately $350.00-$425.00. The printer solution offers an additional record of deposit validation found useful including larger commercial cash deposit scenarios which historically can take significantly longer to process and require physical teller staff to complete along with their other customer obligations. QDS offers 3 models based on performance, note capacity and budget tolerances.
The retail branch continues to receive significant levels of currency and in order to achieve finer levels of efficiency and properly manage the inventory in light of the challenges with the characteristics in receipt of these cash levels (quality, lack of facing, orientation etc), the necessity for a reliable, secure, fast and accurate tool the teller staff can access to regain control of this state of currency is and will remain vital to the operation of the retail branch.