Cash recycling is the process of utilizing cash deposited into a device for future dispensing transactions. Due to its local note recirculation, it enables a reduction in cash services. Prevalent in European banking since the late 80s, cash recycling gained popularity in Germany, the U.K. and the Nordics, where it produced significant advancements in cash management, authentication and verification of banknotes and security standards for the entire continent. Now, cash recycling is revolutionizing the North American market in both the branch and self-service banking channels.
Within the self-service channel, fully automated cash recycling enables consumers to carry out transactions independently while reducing operational costs and minimizing human error in cash handling. Assisted self-service recycling combines automation and human intervention. Although these devices often share the same technology to accept, authenticate, sort and dispense cash, the difference lies in the procedures and risk associated primarily with balancing the counters. Balancing the vault cash in the cash recycler is critical to ensuring accurate banking practices and adequate cash flow for future usage. Full automation sits with the device, whereas assisted self-service gives the teller/financial institution final accountability.
Specific steps for taking the headaches out of balancing and instilling confidence in the daily reporting and cash replenishment projections have advanced with the improved technologies found in the newer generation of recycling engines and terminal software. Equipped to handle the increased demand for recycling multiple currencies and denominations as well as large bundles of notes from small to medium businesses, these technologies improve the efficiency of recycling customer-deposited notes, as well as handling rejected and retracted notes.
Here are three newer recycling technologies and tools to consider:
Increase capacity for multiple denominations and currencies
While most standard cassettes offer high capacity, there are some cases where the balance of cassette space vs. cassette usage is unbalanced. In these cases, the use of a dual cassette makes sense. Offering all denominations of a domestic currency is one such case, as recent studies have indicated that consumers appreciate greater variety and the ability to choose their denomination. If the U.S. dollar is used as an example, that would currently be six denominations (excluding the $2 bill) – impossible with the standard four recycling cassettes. It is possible, however, with two standard and two dual cassettes to support all six denominations without impacting the footprint of the system.
Additionally, not all denominations are as standard as the others which could lead to a poorly fitting configuration that will result in a high number of CIT visits. With dual recycling cassettes, you can assign smaller capacities to the less utilized denominations (e.g., 1,000 notes each), slightly higher capacity to the next most utilized, and then the highest capacity to the most utilized – resulting in fewer CIT visits and lower operating costs. Another use of dual cassettes is to equip a device fully with them and do foreign exchange at the device. The configuration of the dual recycling cassette is done using the latest terminal software and is recognized in the technical SOP. DN's seventh-generation multivendor terminal application software,
Vynamic® Connection Points 7, has a modern user interface that will help financial institutions optimize dual cassettes.
Retract recycling
A retract happens when cash is presented to the consumer at the cash recycler, but for whatever reason, the bundle is not removed within the allotted timeframe. Maybe they were distracted, or something unexpected happened. In some more sinister cases at an ATM, fraudsters will remove some notes out of the bundle prior to retract to perform transaction reversal fraud. In any case, the cash then considered "customer money" and not "bank money" and is taken back and stored in the device – usually in a separate container or bin dedicated to these types of exceptions.
The storage bin for these transactions is relatively small and may need to be emptied after one or two retracts to assure that customer money is not mixed with other notes. This process may require frequent interventions from staff or CIT. However, the RM4V , the fourth-generation recycling engine from Diebold Nixdorf, is designed to fully scan each note before they are presented to the customer and again when they are retracted. So, the exact notes presented are known as well as when any notes are taken back. With that information, a deposit can essentially be performed again with confidence that the stack has not been tampered with. Crediting the amount back to the customer's account and recycling the notes for the next withdrawal request. If the device notices a discrepancy between what is dispensed and deposited, this will not be done to prevent fraud, but when the notes are 100% the same, retract recycling can keep the device in balance, running longer and reducing the need for interventions.
Reject recycling
Notes are rejected when they leave a recycling cassette but do not make it to the output tray. This may happen when notes encounter an issue during picking, transporting or validating upon dispense. These Rejects are then diverted to the rejection bin. For a fully automated device, during a jam, the device will attempt to clear the problem notes from the transport and deposit them back into the recycling bin. The software can be configured to enable teller action for assisted self-service devices in teller mode. This manual intervention gives the teller control over the physical whereabouts of the notes, aides in ensuring the logical and physical counts match and makes balancing both the cash recycler and teller drawer more efficient.
Cash recycling offers several advantages for financial institutions in self-service and branch environments. Utilizing advanced cassette technology that is interchangeable between the two channels reduces complexity for staff and service operations and allows for increased capacity. Regardless of where recycling gets implemented first, understanding your customer needs for denominations and configuring your cassettes and software to respond and create the right balance for your institution is vital.
Diebold Nixdorf has been leading cash recycling globally for years. Recycling delivers savings for banks by reducing CIT visits and other operational costs. Even where the functionality is not immediately utilized, banks can install these machines to allow them the flexibility of switching on the recycling function later when the business case is established.
To discover more about the Diebold Nixdorf cash recycling technology, check out
DieboldNixdorf.com/CashRecycling or contact us
here.
Originally published in
ATM Marketplace
