Innovation drives technologies and finance benefits people’s livelihood. As the modern information technologies are greatly combined with the financial industry, all major banks in China have been accelerating the transformation and upgrade of traditional outlets with the construction of intellectualization.
The reporter learned from the Industrial Bank (IB) that the “Intelligent Counter” of IB has been upgraded to the 4.0 version, which not only enables account opening of debit cards, transfer, remittance, sign-up via E-banking, but also supports card re-issuance application, sales of physical metals, purchase of wealth management products and etc. With more than 80 functions, this product precedes the entire industry. Meanwhile, Intelligent Counter 4.0 introduces human face recognition, remote authorization and other high-tech functions, further enhancing the risk control ability and safety. Now 89.63% traditional outlet transactions have been replaced by the Intelligent Counter, with the service efficiency increased by 58.2%.
Intelligent application fuels outlet upgrade
A recent investigation on the client satisfaction of the banking industry shows that most complaints and feedbacks of clients focus on “long queue and waiting time in operations”. The Intelligent Counter is an important measure against this pain point.
“In the past I had to wait in a long line, complete a handful of forms, run through identity review, paper sign-up and other eight or nine time-consuming steps just to buy a wealth management product. Now I just need to insert my IB debit card into the intelligent counter, select the product and type in the amount. Only three steps.” Miss Zhang told the reporter who was here to buy a wealth management product in her lunch time. An employee of IB told the reporter that clients like Miss Zhang who has opened the wealth management account and completed the risk evaluation only need three minutes to buy a wealth management product with an intelligent counter without the need of repeated identity verification.
The reporter learned from his firsthand experience that “high efficiency” is the first thing the clients would feel when using the IB's intelligent counters. It only takes 2 minutes to handle the business such as card activation and sign-up with an intelligent counter rather than 15 minutes on the counter. The process of card re-issuance application, the sales of physical metals and other new functions of Intelligent Counter 4.0 is also much faster than the counter.
In addition, by combining the currently trendy mobile technologies, IB has added the PAD authorization and approval function on Intelligent Counter 4.0, which means that one PAD can receive the business approvals and instructions sent by multiple intelligent counters and remind approvers to handle the instructions rapidly; approvers can review and approve the business applications sent by multiple intelligent counters with one PAD, ensuring jointless connection between foreground operation and backstage approval.
According to the statistical data, the intelligent counters of IB show prominent advantages compared with similar products of other banks. The workload for one days equals to that of 1200 bank tellers. With great performance in releasing counter pressure and freeing manpower, this product has become a great driver for the upgrade and transformation of operation outlets and the optimization of services. “Once the machine replaces human work, our tellers can relieve from the heavy routine work and go into the way of compound talents so as to better satisfy the multifarious demands of clients and enhance the capability and client satisfaction.” Wang Yu, GM of Bank Card and Channel Department of IB, said.
In addition to more functions, the Intelligent Counter 4.0 also applies the page design elements of APPs. The menu is simpler and the screen is smoother with the quality and texture closer to that of an Internet product. The “paperless” operation embodies the philosophy of IB in green environment.
Actually IB launched the Intelligent Counter as early as in 2013 which was then called “financial self-service terminal” and was renamed in 2015. Now IB has placed more than 4000 Intelligent Counter machines in outlets across China.
Technologies safeguards transaction safety
The transformation of traditional outlets with the distribution of intelligent machines is a matter of efficiency. While increasing efficiency, IB never forgets the importance of safety.
IB’s Intelligent Counter 4.0 introduces the “human face recognition” technology. By strengthening the construction of the human face feature collection system, it can automatically collect, test and track the biological features of clients so as to identify clients. By accurately comparing with the pictures preserved in the public security system, it enhances the risk control ability. Let’s take the example of opening a debit card account with the intelligent counter. Click the “activate card” button and run through identity verification, the page will jump to the self-help camera shooting. After a “selfie” the system will automatically connect to the network, identify your picture and calculate the similarity. The result will come up very soon. If the human face identification fails, the approvers of IB will immediately recheck your ID by another employee, review your ID by referring to your ID certificates or phone number, or take other measures to further confirm and estimate the information of clients. They will hold fast to the line against risks.
Moreover, in order to fight against telecommunication and network frauds, IB’s intelligent counter can retain the accounts involved in crime cases, automatically identify the holder of involved accounts (covering the leasing, sale and buying of bank accounts, false identities or false agency relation defined by the public security authority), and suspend all the transactions under all the accounts of the holder being performed with the intelligent counter. The newly added remote authorization of the Intelligent Counter 4.0, like a “fire wall” for safety, is suitable for password reset, phone number change or other highly risky operations.
Take the initiative to “streamline” mobile services
This upgrade not only challenges the ultimate intelligence of machines but also streamlines the intelligent counter effectively, which applies it in mobile sector, extends the scenario of outlet service and satisfies the requests of clients.
Report has it that after repeated tests and development in the past three versions, IB Intelligent Counter has lost its weight from an 80-odd-kg “big guy” to a 20-kg mobile terminal device. From a fixed machine to a mobile device, it is now the lightest intelligent counter on the market.
“The streamlined intelligent counter allows us to bring the business to the frontline of marketing and directly provide card activation, signing and other services in enterprises and offer counter service and support on the site of marketing campaigns. On the strength of accessible and efficient services, this product greatly supports the business extension of branches and brings utmost experience for clients.” Said Wang Yu.
It is worth-mentioning that the reduced weight of IB mobile intelligent counter does not lessen its more than 80 functions that make it deserve the tile of “multifunctional mobile counter”. By now more than 1000 mobile intelligent counters have been used.