Bringing IoT to the cash center

The ever-increasing pace of commercial life means that cash centers are under greater pressure to process banknotes and banknote data more efficiently. The most common problem facing cash center managers working in central or commercial banks, cash-in-transit (CIT) companies, and casinos is a lack of transparency.

Process anomalies, counting or stacking errors, stoppages in banknote processing systems, time lost to unplanned maintenance, and a lack of visibility over the entire cash flow process – all these are factors that slow processing down.

“A typical problem facing a cash center manager is to determine whether it’s the machine, the operator, the note quality, or the process that’s not working properly,” says Robert Rose, Senior Product Manager Digital Customer Solutions in the Currency Technology business of G+D.

“Managers want to be able not only to see the performance of a single cash center, but also to compare different site, operator and service-related data.”

Integrated end-to-end software solutions meet this challenge by turning data from machines, sites, and resources into operational excellence. As well as the number of notes, this data includes throughput, counting and stacking performance, the number of rejected notes, and, crucially, where and why jams and stoppages are occurring.

When viewed in the context of integrated end-to-end solutions, this form of application has myriad advantages for cash management. Not only does it facilitate operation optimization, maintenance prediction, and personnel requirements, but it can also support test-case simulations and innovation without disrupting performance.

“Ultimately, it will enable the cash center manager to rethink and optimize processes,” says Rose, adding that by providing a greater level of transparency across the whole supply chain, digital twins can also assist in the delivery of service level agreements.

For CIT businesses, this could include the potential to plan resources more effectively or form a better idea of how many vehicles or operatives they need to count and move money, thereby reducing susceptibility to penalties. Cash center backlogs and downtime can also be eased, and partners forewarned about expected delays.

New insights for cash management

When a multitude of data is harvested, analyzed, and utilized within integrated end-to-end solutions, everybody wins: both owners and stakeholders are empowered with new insights for cash management.

Anonymized technical data, such as the quality and fitness of banknotes and the number of rejects or anomalies, can be streamed onto partners without compromising security. This has the potential to enable banks to prepare for spikes in activity or anticipated deviations in quality. Likewise, retail customers can use the technology to see how their daily deposits are being processed.

"Performance data can reveal patterns to inform process planning and benchmarking," says Rose, sharing his predictions for how day-to-day cash center operations will change in line with the introduction of holistic digital solution proposition.

"First, we will see demand-driven ideas about how to feed money into the cash centers. At the moment, cash arrives in sacks and has to be taken out. For banks it would be really good if there were more exchanges of data – not the value of the banknotes but the volumes and fitness levels.

“For CITs, the future is really about workforce planning. Do they need to have armored vehicles traveling such long distances if it means compromising their service level agreements, or do they need another cash center in the area?”

Additionally, if artificial intelligence is used to enable self-learning machines to monitor local operations and their own performance, and then adapt operations accordingly, it will further reduce the need for central control and enable automatic software updates and upgrades, driving even more efficiency.

Published: 19/05/2020