Wincor World 2005: Even more visitors this year

Wincor World 2005, which was held between January 25 and 27 at the Welle Exhibition Center, exceeded organizers' expectations in every way.

The number of visitors was slightly ahead of last year's figure, when Paderborn played host to 7,700 decision makers from the worlds of banking and retail. However, about 500 of these were also delegates to the 2004 Retail Innovation Conference organized by the European Retail Institute and the North-Rhine Westphalia Ministry of Labor, Trade & Industry. "Against this background, the trend in visitor numbers is more than good", said Andreas Bruck, Head of Corporate Communications at Wincor Nixdorf.

The countries the visitors represented is a reflection of the company's efforts to internationalize its business: whereas, last year, visitors came from 50 countries, this year's exhibition was attended by people from nearly 60 countries. IT managers, in particular from major growth countries in Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America, used the event to find out about the latest developments for banking and retail. There was also increased interest from neighboring industries such as industrial manufacturing, lottery operators and postal service providers. "One noteworthy feature was that visitors are looking at technologies and solutions on a cross-industry basis, and also learning from each other", Bruck continued.

Whilst the visitors' focus was on issues such as cash recycling (combined deposit and withdrawal of banknotes using self-service machines), new software and security solutions for branch banking, retail visitors also showed keen interest in new point-of-sale technologies such as the various self-checkout concepts, cash management and reverse vending solutions. The two symposia on the first and second days of the exhibition were also well attended.