Extraco Banks makes banking “Simple, Fast, and Fun!” with Digital Check TellerScan TS240/TTP

March 16, 2012

“Simple, fast, and fun!” is the mantra at Extraco Banks, the $1.2 billion bank headquartered in Waco, TX. They are all about optimizing customer experience through innovation, and that is one reason why the bank was an early adopter of teller image capture. But technically, it’s not teller image capture at Extraco. They don’t employ tellers per se – at least not in the traditional sense.

Extraco has moved their tellers from behind the counter and onto the floor as relationship bankers, to mingle with and greet customers before guiding them to a dialogue tower or modified teller line to conduct their transaction. “Our goal is to greet customers within 5 seconds of their entering the branch,” said Sandra Dixon, executive vice president of operations. “We want to create a positive experience for the customer, so we have literally cut through the sacred marble counters to bring our relationship bankers out to the customer, rather than make the customer stand in line. We call this Swarm^TM banking.”

In addition to Swarm banking and teller image capture, Extraco is rolling out the latest equipment to enhance the customer experience: Digital Check TellerScan^® TS230 and TS240 check scanners with integrated TTP ”” teller transaction printers ”” cash recyclers to speed customer transactions and end of the day balancing (which takes only 20-30 seconds), headsets for each relationship banker to ensure better and faster service, video conferencing to the customer care center to help resolve fraud and other time intensive issues, and intelligent deposit ATMs.

90-94% CAR Rates Speed Up & Simplify Teller Operation

Some banks fear tellers may experience added workload when implementing teller image capture. However, Extraco realized CAR/LAR read rates of 90-94% and MICR read rates in the high 99% accuracy range, meaning their relationship bankers actually have to do less keying and fewer corrections, speeding the transaction and reducing the workload. Customers appreciate the extended cutoff as a result of implementing teller image capture. Bank customers now have an extra hour to get to the bank for same-day availability of their funds.

Extraco has also moved toward the use of virtual tickets, eliminating the material and processing costs of paper-based tickets. Any deposit or withdrawal of $250 or less in cash does not require a paper form for the transaction. Elimination of paper forms has saved the bank $8,000 per year in printing costs. The bank has also realized cost savings by reducing fraud and overdraft losses and by eliminating the need to physically transport paper checks, along with the risk of theft, damage, or loss associated with these operations.

Along with implementing teller image capture, the bank identified customers with high volume transactions and made a goal of showing those customers the benefits of remote deposit capture. This strategy has paid huge dividends in reducing the workload of the branches, but more importantly in improving the overall customer experience. Now those customers can eliminate an interruption to their workday and realize faster access to their money by using RDC.

While customer experience is the number one priority at Extraco, achieving a return on investment on this technology is an important priority as well. Soon after adopting teller image capture, the bank was able to reduce staff and eliminate a number of expensive procedures. Extraco saved roughly $228,000 in labor costs on back office proofing and reconciliation of day-two items. By streamlining processes, the bank has also increased productivity by the equivalent of 1.5 to 3 full time employees per branch while staffing remained flat. Overall, the new concepts have allowed Extraco to enjoy an 18 percent deposit growth with no addition to staff.

Today, Extraco’s success has gained widespread attention and they recently received a 2011 Celent Model Bank Award. Truly, Extraco is making banking Simple, Fast, and Fun!

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