The annual Wincor World ATM conference, hosted by Wincor at their German headquarters, draws crowds from around the world, keen to see the latest advances in ATM tech. Billy Bambrough attended the conference and sat down with head of UK banking at Wincor Nixdorf, Ian Bryne
Wincor World is a global event by any measure; boasting 500 exhibits, with 50 specialist presentations from Wincor Nixdorf and 46 partner exhibitors and more retail point-of-sale (POS) solutions than it seems anyone has cared to count.
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The event was held in the A2 Forum in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, Germany not far from Wincor Nixdorf’s head office in Paderborn.
The exhibition revolves around four areas: customer experience, branch transformation, omnichannel banking, and operational excellence. Lindner cited these six areas of particular importance in a rapidly changing global financial services market.
Anja Lindner, head of industry marketing banking at Wincor Nixdorf says: "If drivers for your retail banking business are the changing role of your branch, efficient and secure operation of your self-service channel, or enhanced self-service offerings to your customers, Wincor World is definitely the place to be."
The focus of the show was on innovative hardware, software, and services that enable banks and retailers to do business in a customer-oriented and efficient way as well as on ideas for tomorrow’s bank branches and retail stores. One of the key areas on display was the processing of cashless and mobile transactions.
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By GlobalDataIan Bryne, head of UK banking at Wincor Nixdorf tells RBI: "We restructured a couple of years ago from a traditional legal entity which ended up with 40 odd companies reporting into the board which became very difficult to manage and as we expanded into new geographies like Asia and Latin America it became increasingly apparent that it was impossible to manage it effectively like that."
There was a lot of interest in software that allow customers to carry out their transactions via smartphone or tablet computer, such as cash withdrawals from ATMs using a smartphone.
Wincor explained that this software can help retailers combine the shopping experience of a retail outlet with the online world. Wincor Nixdorf also premiered a marketplace for Android-based apps that enables retailers to handle sales and payment processes online.
Bryne says: "We moved to a matrix structure, centred around banking business, retail business and then the services infrastructure that delivers service to the businesses."
"The lines are blurring between retail and banking"
The company presented new service options that enable banks to enhance the experience they create for their customers. Sample applications revealed how the range of self-service options can be expanded when staff use video or tablet computers to help clients with certain transactions.
"That’s an international structure. As we are primarily known for our European activities we had to put a structure in place that was replicable and scalable in those markets. A lot of thought when into that," explains Bryne.
"That area in particular has been very effective. We have contracts like Tesco, who is probably the flagship for that. We are taking that out of the retail environment and moving into banking with Tesco as well."
The organizers recorded a high level of interest in Wincor Nixdorf’s new omni-commerce capabilities such as mobile POS, a new tablet solution for retail applications that can be deployed as a fully functional stationary checkout or for mobile payments, when advising customers on the shop floor, carrying out administrative tasks, or doing inventory.
"This is something we will see replicated and despite many of our competitors being much larger and America based is proving to be really effective. The flexibility we have means that we are well positioned in the European market and when we export this abroad.
"The split in the company is more-or-less 50-50 between retail and banking services."
In addition a new form factor using smart watch technology was demonstrated for use both from a banking and retail POS perspective.
Bryne says: "Over the last three to five years we’ve put a huge amount of emphasis into the software and security development. Its driving not just the back office but the performance of the machines.
"We see the software and services side of the business to be very integral to the business.
"With branch transformation programs, driven by banks efforts to reduce their costs and having been somewhat emaciated in some of their business lines by ECB and government we have retail banks now with challenged mortgage portfolios trying to make money out of the current account which was traditional free in the UK, and often made a loss elsewhere.
"By necessity in this area costs have had to be dramatically reduced to be able to deliver a service to the customers and try and make some money from the product. This has driven the demand for cheaper hardware and software, which Wincor is keen to meet.
"The strategy for 2014 is all about transformation. We will be supporting our customer and want them to be able to quickly change and develop transaction sets as more and more retail business divest into banking."
Overall, Wincor World 2014 highlighted how the lines between retail and banking in the digital age continue to blur. The cutting-edge products demonstrated by Wincor Nixdorf at the event are or will significantly contribute to the improving the consumer’s 21st century shopping and banking experiences.
