We are traveling in China researching processes and technologies being utilized by the banking industry. ARCA attended the CIFTEE Financial Trade Show in Beijing on August 30, 2014. Virtual Teller Machines (known as Remote Teller Machines in the US) were the notable new technology being marketed. The twist for the local market is that companies were promoting Virtual Tellers for many of the platform activities, including opening new accounts and producing new credit cards while customers waited.
Self-service use cases were also a dominant theme, with customer-facing dispensers and new technologies being utilized for biometric identification. Several companies were displaying cash counters, cash sorters and printer components that operate as a critical part of banking operations.
We attended a couple of informative demonstrations that I had not seen before. First was an automated high-speed assembly process that was turning white credit card stock into finished EMV (Chip) Credit Cards. Second was a robot-assisted assembly process that accepted stacks of loose notes, performed strapping operation and bagging of multiple stacks of strapped notes into a sealed bag, then boxed the sealed bags for cash in transit. Third were mobile bank branches that are converted recreational vehicles with mobile teller windows or converted vans with built-in ATM machines.
As a global company, ARCA understands that handling of cash, coin and payments vary widely by country. As a product manager, it was great to see the use cases and pain points that many are working on addressing.