By Babajide Komolafe
Banks battle for cus tomers’ loyalty via electronic banking channels have shifted to the Cash Deposit ATM segment where Skye Bank and UBA locked in an intense services delivery contest.

The history of ATMs date

Naira sign

back to the USA in the mid 1960s and gained grounds world over, in the 70s. In Nigeria, the ATM was introduced in 1989 by the defunct Societe Generale Bank. Since then, ATMs appear to have spread their tentacles across Nigeria.

At inception, the few banks that had these machines in Nigeria restricted customers to accessing the machines from their banks alone. This situation has changed today as technology solutions have been made available to the banks to enable users make withdrawals from ATMs of other banks.

However, the usage of ATM in Nigeria is just advancing beyond withdrawals, checking of account balance and purchase of airtime, despite the craving for its multifunctional services (pay bills or make utility/tax payments, calls, stock transaction, purchasing tickets etc); these modern services are not popular among users yet.

Recently, Skye Bank and UBA extended the frontiers of service delivery through ATM  when the almost simultaneously introduced the intelligent cash deposit Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) for use by their customers and other members of the banking public.

The novel feat was prompted by desire  to bring convenience, safety and security to cash lodgement to complement cash withdrawal through the ATMs.

Skye Bank had on May 5, 2009 announced the introduction of the intelligent cash deposit ATMs, describing the feat is the first in the country by any financial institution. The bank had said in a statement signed by its Head of Corporate Affairs, Kayode Akinyemi, that the ATMs allow customers to deposit cash into their accounts anytime of the day and get immediate value.  It also said customers are at liberty to deposit up to 200 notes at a time, without having to sort them according to denominations.

The bank also said the ATMs allow customers to deposit cheques, carry out foreign exchange transactions as well as withdraw cash, saying that with the innovation, it had moved ahead of the prevailing ATM technology where customers deposit cash at ATMs using envelopes which has resulted in fraud in some developed countries.

“Intelligent cash-deposit ATMs, on the other hand, do away with the need for staff to withdraw money from the ATMs to process as the process is entirely automated. The ATMs scan the bank notes on both sides to check for authenticity”, the bank explained.

Then on May 26, the bank formally launched the ATMs. Speaking at the unveiling of the ATMs for use by customers of the bank and others, the Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Akinsola Akinfemiwa, said the ATMs allow customers to deposit cash into their accounts any time of the day and get immediate value. Besides, he said the machines accept notes of five different currencies at the moment with a plan to increase the number of currency in due course. Akinfemiwa said the notes not recognized by the ATMs would be returned to the customers, thereby making it impossible for fake notes to be deposited.
Also explaining how the machines work, the bank’s Head of E-Channels, Chuma Ezirim, said that the ATMs had been deployed at the bank’s Head Office at Akin Adesola and at the Palms in Lekki. He said the ATMs would be on pilot run for three months before they are massively rolled out.

Ezirim said with the successful deployment of the intelligent ATMs, the bank has joined the league of select group of international banks that have successfully introduced the ATMs in their respective markets.

Such international banks, it said, include Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Wachovia, JP Morgan in the United States, and UnitCredit Banca in Italy.   Like the other intelligent cash-deposit ATMs, Skye Bank intelligent cash-deposit ATMs presently accept only one currency, the Naira. The -TMs accept the most widely used denominations of N100, N200, N500 and N1000.

“Our customers can also deposit cheques in the ATMs. Each cheque is inserted into the ATM through the ATM cheque processor opening. As the cheque is  inserted, it is imaged, both front and rear, the image is displayed on the screen and subsequently printed on the receipt to give the customer positive confirmation that the bank has acceopted the cheque.

When the cheque is inserted into the ATM, it is read by a MICR reader to ensure that a MICR code line is present and that it is a valid cheque. If the ATM cannot verify the cheque, it can be rejected and returned to the customer. Image of  the verified cheque together with the captured code line data can be passed to the back-office for processing. Cheques are picked up at specified dates by designated officers for further processing.

“Our foreign exchange solution on ATM is designed to exchange five types of currencies: US Dollars, British Pounds, Euro, Kuwait Dollars and South African Rands. More currencies would be added later. The ATM will display the various exchange rates for each currency, and the customer is free to insert his notes if he accepts the the rates, says Chuma Ezirim, Skye Bank’s Head of E-Channels”, Ezirim explained.

However, in between the time Skye Bank announced that it was offering the service and when it eventually launched the ATMs, UBA Plc hit the airwaves and subsequently launched the ATMs before Skye Bank, thereby introducing an interesting and comic angle to the competition.

Speaking at the unveiling ceremony, UBA Group Executive Officer, Mr. Tony Elumelu, said the deployment of the cash deposit ATMs was defining moment in the banking industry. According to him, “the pull effect of this development would transform the entire banking industry. Expectedly, other banks will follow suit  by deploying cash deposit ATMs  like we have done, for the ultimate benefit  of the bank customers and the general public”.

While also speaking on the machines, UBA’s Director of Group e-Banking, Charles Ogunmola, said the launch was the result of years of knowledge  and experience in the electronic payment and processing which the bank has leveraged on to come out with innovation aimed at improving customer experience.

“The resulting combination of new technology together with a re-engineering  of the ATM cash deposit processes has enabled UBA to make the overall processes more assuring and less costly for the customers”, he said.