Selling tickets and coupons at the ATM may sound vaguely familiar.
If it doesn't, it should. ATMs that did more than just dispense cash were at the top of the ATM industry's list 10 years ago. But selling movie or game tickets at the ATM didn't take off for reasons such as long lines, malfunctioning ticket dispensers and low overall ticket sales, among others.
So why would manufacturers want to sell ATMs that offer some of those same functions now? Industry experts point to the boom in retail placements, where FIs are gaining a presence through branding programs. And some on-premise placements are selling stamps and testing functions such as check cashing and bill payment.
Bob Fincher, executive vice president of sales and marketing for NetWorld Alliance, publisher of ATMmarketplace, found in a 2004 survey of ATM executives that advanced options at ATMs is an industry expectation for the future.
According to the survey, 80 percent of participants said they believed ATM's enhanced self-service functionality would be mildly to extremely viable over the course of the next five to 10 years. And 61 percent said they expected the future growth potential of non-cash-dispensing, financial self-service devices at FIs to be moderate to great over the same period.
Freemont, Calif.-based Tranax Technologies Inc. recently unveiled its Ticketing Self-Service Terminal, which is the company's Mini-Bank 2500 with hardware for ticketing.
The Mini-Bank 2500, which runs on Microsoft Windows XP, which makes it flexible for ticketing, said Scott Holt, product manager of self-service terminals for Tranax.
And Tranax isn't the only one jumping back on the ticketing and couponing wagon. Carrollton, Texas-based Tidel Engineering Inc. recently promoted its Tidel 3100 and 3400, both of which have the flexibility to dispense coupons.
What's changed?
In the '90s, FIs quit selling tickets at the ATM because they couldn't make money. But ticket sales and other advanced functions may make sense today for bank or credit union ATMs.
"For us, it's all about determining what's convenient for the customer," said Jonathan Velline, head of ATM banking for San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co., the fifth largest bank in the U.S.
Ticket sales "just didn't make sense at the ATM," he said. "You have to think about what the customer is thinking about — what does the customer need to do while they're at the ATM making a transaction. And you have to consider what all of your customers across the board will be interested in." Ticket sales proved to be of interest primarily to customers using ATMs near event venues.
Selling stamps at the ATM, for instance, has been successful for Wells Fargo since "everyone needs stamps," Velline said. In fact, Wells Fargo is the sixth largest retailer of postage stamps.
"You read about some products that are outside the banking sphere that just aren't going to work at ATMs," he added. "We think customers are thinking about financial products, and that's what we're focusing our attention on."
