COVID CATALYST

Hey, welcome to COVID Catalysts. In this section of content, we want to talk about the changes that COVID has helped catalyze in the industry.

First up, we want to talk about digital banking. Many of our clients have had to close branches. They've had to go to by appointment only. So, how do we allow our customers and members to still get banking done? A product like POPiO, one that has both an in-branch solution as well as a mobile tablet or online solution, allows you to get banking done without necessarily having to come to the branch.

So, I lovingly referred to it as a kind of face-time married with Doc-U-Sign. You still get that personal interaction. Many of our clients talk about the "special sauce" of their institution: the people there, so that technology allows their people to engage with their clients, and we can get things done like new account openings, transfers, and high-level conversations.

Another component that allows is the centralizing of your key revenue producers. So, there's nothing more frustrating from a client experience perspective than walking in a location, and that particular expert is not available; they're only in the branch on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Well, by centralizing that functionality, a client can walk in a branch, be greeted by a Universal staff member who may identify a need, and get you on with our expert immediately by walking you over to a high-resolution video interaction. This allows that wealth management person to help somebody roll over a 401K, allowing that lending officer to talk about mortgage or home equity line, and doing it right when the demand is there versus asking the client to schedule an appointment and come back later.

There's nothing more frustrating than making the time to try to have a key financial interaction and be told, "we can't do that right now." So if you're looking to reduce friction and have a better client experience— and we talk about the Amazon effect all the time of allowing clients to bank when they want a bank— you can use POPiO to leverage both your branch channels for immediate resolution as well as leverage mobile, tablet or online.

Another great example I think about is if your branch is local to someone's home but maybe not local to their work. And now they've got a key need that has come up. They could, literally, from their work station at work, generate a POPiO session, have that key conversation about a particular product or service that's of need, and not have to worry that the branch isn't convenient to their workplace. They can get it done on their lunch hour, sign off on the documentation, and move on.

I think COVID has simply catalyzed that change. I think as COVID gets addressed over time, that business practice is still going to be in it for the long run. So think about that when considering your digital strategy with POPiO.

In this section of content, we're talking about how COVID has changed the world and how those business processes will still exist when we finally beat COVID going forward. So again, one of the challenges we've heard most of our clients have had is going to drive-through at some point.

So how do you continue to maintain transactional throughput and still offer great service if you can only operate in the drive through? Maybe you only have two or three lanes. Things like teller cash recyclers become super important to allow you to very quickly, effectively, and accurately process cash both coming in through the drive-through and keep the speed up as cash goes out.

As you think about that service platform and being able to deliver a good experience, a fast experience in the drive-through (with limited resources like not having the added staff to take care of those transactions) TCRs becomes very important in that modality. Secondly, we think about just the impact of automating with cash recyclers both in the lobby and in the drive-thru. You're reducing the amount of times notes are handled in the branch.

Maybe you've gone to a pod concept, and you're thinking about exposure as well as security. TCRs have become a table stakes level to keep security high at the branch as well as reduced touches.

You may not be aware that the average amount of touches a note has from when it enters a branch to when it exits is seven touches. Typically, when you automate with cash recyclers, that drops below four.

So you're eliminating a significant amount of counts and recounts with TCRs. COVID has driven a reason to automate drive-throughs, but going forward, we're going to see the continued requests for how we make ourselves more efficient, and how do we deliver great client experience.

In this segment, we talk about how COVID has catalyzed new technologies and new business processes that aren't going to go back as it goes away.

As a company, we have seen a 50% jump in interest in ITMs. Why is that? ITMs are one of those key technologies that allow you to extend the hours in which your clients can get business done, and it is typically focused around the drive-through. Many of our clients, as COVID happened, had to shut down to drive-through only service. They've had to experience closing branches.

So how do you still keep up with the volume while allowing your clients to self-service well? ITMs have become that key technology driver for those institutions.

ITMs allow more functionality, more transactions that can't typically be done at a base ATM such as performing transactions within all your accounts. You can make deposits to all of your accounts. You can make loan payments to any account tied to your core. You could get a video teller involved when needed. If you need to do a check cashing or if you need help, you can still have that face to face interaction, which, by the way, 95% of transactions can be done without needing a video teller.

If you've kicked around the idea of ITMs, or you've struggled with serving your clients well through COVID and having to shut down branches, we are seeing a huge influx of requests for an ITM strategy, and we're here to help you.