By Elliott Holley

Drive-through ATMs that provide video chat with a bank advisor, the debate over the relationship between ATMs and NFC contactless payment, and the possibilities for improving the efficiency of cash systems – all are on display at Wincor World in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, Germany, this week.

The event, run by ATM maker Wincor Nixdorf, focuses on bringing together retail banking companies and participants, with an emphasis on innovation and new technologies.

BBVA Compass, a bank that provides banking, wealth management, credit card and financial services, adopted a drive-through ATM with the help of Wincor Nixdorf. Currently available in the US, the Cineo 2590 uses face-recognition technology that is designed to identify the driver at any level. To ensure security, the ATM uses directional hearing technology – meaning that private conversations about personal finance can only be heard by the user.

Other technologies included cash recycling systems, which have been designed to make ATMs more efficient by removing complex cash handing processes with a simpler process in which deposits and withdrawals can be made on the same machine. It seems set to be a feature that vendors will be pushing in the coming few years – rival ATM manufacturer Diebold has a product called the Diebold 228 Express Cash Recycler, which accepts cash, verifies authenticity, sorts by denomination and stores it, so that the same cash can be re-used for cash withdrawals.

Drawing on developments in mobile payments technology, Tesco showcased a ‘future scene’ video in which a customer, Emily, was able to organise her shopping list on a mobile device, collect the goods on arrival at the store, use the phone to gain recipe suggestions related to the ingredients she had chosen, and have staff fetch items she may have forgotten and deliver them to her home.

In addition, business projects, such as Wincor Nixdorf’s Knowledge Centre, aim to create a virtual ‘Wikipedia’ of problem-solving that banks can use to solve their customers’ issues. The idea is that if a customer in Singapore experiences a problem, when someone in the US has the same issue the original solution can be immediately accessed and used again, rather than having to re-solve the same problem every time.