(Editor’s note: The Kiosk Excellence Awards were established by KioskCom in 2002 to honor, recognize and promote the best interactive self-service kiosk implementations. The 2004 awards, recently handed out at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, Nev., honored kiosk excellence in 11 different categories, including Financial Services.)

The two top Best Financial Services Kiosk Applications meet the financial needs of a wide variety of consumers.

The winner: reallocating resources

For the second consecutive year, Fidelity Financial took home the award for the Best Financial Services Kiosk Application with its Automated Deposit Machine.

(See related story Fidelity cashes in, wins awards)

Prior to launching this application, Fidelity Investment representatives processed more than 2 million checks per year. With an average processing time of two minutes per check, bank representatives had little time left for revenue-driving activities.

Fidelity developed its ADM project not only to free up valuable rep time, but also to allow customers to control the transaction process and quickly deposit checks on their own.

The project has been a huge success. In 2002 alone, some 500,000 checks were deposited using the ADM. At two minutes per deposit transaction, that's more than 16,000 rep hours reallocated to revenue-generating activities.

The Fidelity check deposit kiosks feature a weight-sensitive security device that launches the program when a customer approaches;it ends the transaction if the customer steps away. It also incorporates touchscreens that guide customers through the transaction.

Once the transaction is complete, the money is allocated into designated accounts and the customer gets a time-dated receipt that includes a scanned image of the deposited check.

While Fidelity customers benefit from the convenience and shorter wait times, the biggest advantage for the company is that representatives can now concentrate on more complex issues.

Rachelle Robin, director of Fidelity's Investor Center Technology Group, said, "The representatives are freed up to do other things such as assist with or facilitate sales opportunities and, secondly, to work with customers on more in-depth service issues. It’s just much more efficient and much more professional and much more accurate."

Runner-up: convenient Cricket

The runner-up in the Best Financial Services Kiosk Application category was Circle K's Cricket, a bill-pay application that addresses the needs of customers who want to pay their Cricket mobile bills in person or who pay in cash because they are unbanked.

Cricket Communications, Info Touch Technologies and Kiosk Information Systems partnered to offer Cricket customers a more convenient way to pay their cellular phone bills using Info Touch- and KIS-designed ZapLink Internet kiosks located in Circle K stores.

"The Cricket application has given customers a convenient way to pay in person with no wait," said Hamed Shahbazi, chairman and CEO of Info Touch Technologies. "Last month we put through our one millionth customer. This machine has driven income for the stakeholders and it drives value to the consumer."

He added, "Things have gotten to the point where it’s about the value, not just the cool factor. Now we are impacting the customer."