"Bankers' Hours" Takes on New Meaning: Texas Bank Is a Firm Believer in Video Banking. but Branches Will Stay

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The term comes from the traditional bank operating hours between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., long out of date. Today, the term is often used to describe an easy job with short working hours. In contrast, at FirstCapital Bank of Texas, any hour of the day--or night--is bankers' hours. The bank recently launched ten interactive video teller kiosks that provide customers with live, remote teller service at four of the bank's seven branches located throughout western Texas and the Texas Panhandle 24 hours a day, five days a week. The $800 million-assets bank plans to install the kiosks, which it calls TellerConnect, in all seven branches as well as non-branch locations, says Brad Burgess, CEO. Several TellerConnect kiosks are drive-up units, and the rest are located within the branches--placed in 24-hour lobbies. We're looking at expanding our footprint by installing TellerConnect in locations outside our branches, says Burgess. For example, the bank is considering placing the units in area hospitals to provide 24-hour banking to hospital staff, who typically do not work 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The TellerConnect units, supplied by NCR, combine video banking with remote transaction processing banking technology. This allows centrally located tellers--in Lubbock, Tex.--to take remote control of the kiosk while video chatting with customers. If customers want privacy, they can use on-screen messaging or speak via handset. FirstCapital is one of the few banks that has rolled out 24-hour access from the get-go, planning to eventually extend TellerConnect availability from five to seven days a week. The majority of banks have taken a slower approach, says Addison Hoover, general manager of branch transformation marketing at NCR. Most banks choose to extend hours--7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. is pretty typical--and then move to 24-hour service as they add more kiosks or ramp up their marketing, he explains. TellerConnect can process about 95% of all traditional teller transactions. It does not accept coins and cannot issue cashier's checks. Although TellerConnect can, in theory, process a large volume of transactions, it's best suited for deposits of less than ten items. It's still less time-consuming to use a traditional teller for large volume transactions, explains Burgess. Serving multi-shift clients The bank became intrigued with interactive video technology offered by uGenius Technology, a Sandy, Utah, provider, more than three years ago. The Utah company was subsequently acquired by NCR, and the video technology is part of the suite of NCR ATM and branch transformation products and services endorsed by ABA. The bank made several onsite visits to banks in North Carolina and upstate New York that were using video teller technology. The onsite visits cemented the bank's belief that 24-hour video banking would suit its customers, many of whom are shift workers. As primarily a commercial bank, FirstCapital serves several large corporate employers throughout Lubbock, Amarillo, and Midland, Tex., and employees of these corporations often visit branches to cash paychecks. Since several of these employers, including hospitals and those in the oil and refinery business, run 24-hour operations, it's inconvenient or downright difficult for employees to visit a branch during traditional business hours. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Onsite tellers are still available, but now those shift workers have access to tellers when it suits their work schedules. Our objective was not to change the way our customers can access tellers, but to give them another option, Burgess says. Centralized teller benefits FirstCapital elected to locate TellerConnect tellers in Lubbock for several reasons. For one, Lubbock is centrally located between Amarillo and Midland. Secondly, with multiple colleges located in the Lubbock area, the bank has a strong pool of well-educated talent to draw from. …