Transcript
Text: Why did you choose cash automation technology as part of your branch strategy?
Kevin Deardorff, Executive Vice President, Retail Banking, Lake City Bank: "We're building new offices. We wanted to be as technologically savvy as possible. We've been looking at the technology and felt that when we were making a significant investment in a new large office that it wasn't too incremental of a jump to go ahead and invest in recycler technology. So that was probably what prompted the decision first. We liked it."
Text: What is the future for tellers and technology?
Kevin Deardorff: "A competitor of ours in our market was very much cutting edge with the interactive ATM technologies, using them inside the branch, and they had actually retrofitted many of their existing branches to where they just had a client assistant, a universal banker, and then a row of ITM units. And so she was there if needed, she was there to assist, but primarily, she was there to direct clients to utilizing those ITMs. I don't think that was real successful for them. I think that technology will become more prevalent. We're going to start using it now for drive up because I think at that point it's very easy to justify the ROI. And the client already is expecting to use some type of technology. But I don't see us utilizing it inside the bank. I don't see us replacing our teller lines with ITMs in the next 5 to 10 years. I would see us putting one unit inside the foyer."
Text: What will the branch of the future look like?
Kevin Deardorff: "Less lobby space, less teller line. We're actually just getting ready to use interactive ATM as the drive-up facility at that new office that we're opening in Fort Wayne. So I don't think you'll see the traditional drive-ups anymore. So you won't have the deal drawer, you won't have the tubes, etc., etc. There'll be... Using Indianapolis as an example when we first entered the Indianapolis market five years ago, our strategy was to build a hub office then cover the major thoroughfares coming in from the north which makes sense with us being on the north side of Indianapolis. And then we would probably fill in that market area with other branches. And because of the increased use of mobile banking and remote deposit capture, etc., we've changed our strategy. And so we did the hub office, probably built it too big. We've done the branches on the major thoroughfares, perfect. And now we're gonna go to the next market. So it's going to reduce both the square footage and the number of branches. And the efficiency of the technology makes that even more possible."